


The Tribe of the Cave Slayer.

by steeleye



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Pre-historic Action, Pre-historic humour, Pre-historic politics, Pre-historic-Adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-03 22:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16334471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: A somewhat longer sequel to 'Clan of the Cave Slayer' and 'Odyssey of the Cave Slayer'.  The further adventures of Shine the Cave Slayer. Political rivalries come to a head as Shine tries to deal with wandering time travellers and 'Beast-men' who are out to steal fire from her people.





	1. Chapter 1

The Tribe of the Cave Slayer.

By Dave Turner.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Dr Who. I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** Dr Who (1st Doctor).

 **Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious UK-English (the original and best) which is different to US-English.

 **Timeline:** Set one year to eighteen months after the events depicted in ‘Clan of the Cave Slayer’ and 'Odyssey of the Cave Slayer'.

 **Words:** Thirteen chapters of around 2500 words.

 **Warnings:** Don't put your daughter on the stage Mrs Worthington.

 **Summary:** A somewhat longer sequel to 'Clan of the Cave Slayer' and 'Odyssey of the Cave Slayer'. The further adventures of Shine the Cave Slayer. Political rivalries come to a head as Shine tries to deal with wandering time travellers and 'Beast-men' who are out to steal fire from her people.

0=0=0=0

Hurrying through the village, Shine dodged between the huts and tried not to trip over the children as they played some complicated game of chase to which only they knew all the rules. Coming to the meadow at the edge of the village, she started to run, she was late, the meeting of the Council of Mothers had gone on longer than she’d realised. Glancing up at the sun she saw it was nearly midday, her daughter, Bright, would be hungry. Luckily it wasn’t far to her clan’s collection of huts.

The little group of five huts, made from skins covering a frame work of branches, was situated on a rise near a stream. The edge of the forest was only a short walk away; with the trees and the water so close together her little clan had everything it needed until the time came to move back over the mountains again for the winter. That had been why the Mothers had been meeting, they’d been trying to decide when the tribe should start its pre-winter trek over the mountain passes; Shine had argued that there wasn’t a need any more.

The trip across the mountain passes was always dangerous; the tribe would lose people, often the very old or the very young. They also lost pregnant women, a loss the tribe could well do without; how was the tribe supposed to grow if it kept losing women and their unborn children? One of the women that had died the previous autumn was ‘Wise’ the old leader of the Mother’s Council. As her name suggested Wise was clever and her memories stretched back further than anyone else’s in the tribe, she’d also liked Shine and had always given her suggestions a great deal of thought. But now Wise was dead the Council had been taken over by Berry, a silly woman. But Berry was a silly woman with powerful friends and Shine was convinced these ‘friends’ were using Berry to speak through her mouth.

Slowing to a halt as she entered the loose ring of huts, Shine looked around and sighed with relief. There was her sister, Dusk sitting in front of her hut making baskets and keeping an eye on the eight children belonging to the clan.

“Shine!” Dusk looked up and smiled at her big sister, “You’re totally late!”

“I’m sorry,” Shine threw herself onto the skin next to Dusk, “the mothers can talk the back legs off a mammoth!”

“Here,” Dusk picked up a child aged about one year old and passed her to Shine, “she’s hungry, I would have fed her myself but I guessed you’d be home soon.”

“Thanks, Dusk you’re a star,” Shine took her daughter in her arms and settled the child so she could suck at her breast, “OW!” Shine squeaked as her daughter nipped her nipple, “Little beast!” Shine admonished her child, “That hurt.”

“Serves you right for being late,” Dusk pointed out as she picked up her own child and started to nurse her.

Sitting in companionable silence for a moment or two, Shine started to ponder on the strangeness of life. Her and Dusk's mother had only had them, two daughters; Shine often wondered it that was part of the reason that their father had left them. A man wanted at least one son to teach how to hunt and track, but all he’d got were daughters. Shine didn’t say any of these thoughts out loud because she knew how Dusk would react and Shine didn’t want to upset her sister.

Swapping her child to her other breast, Shine continued with her thoughts. It was odd how their mother had two daughters and now both Shine and Dusk had a daughter each. They’d both snuggled and been given babies at about the same time and they’d given birth within days of each other. Of course any thought that there might be something weird going on was spoilt by the fact that their mother had later given birth to a boy, Lucky, after she’d mated with Night-Watcher.

“So what was so important that you had to spend all morning with the Mothers?” Dusk wanted to know as she too swapped her child from one breast to the other.

“Oh,” Shine sighed tiredly, “its about going over the mountains…”

“Oh,” Dusk frowned, she wasn’t looking forward to crossing the mountains again; the last time the tribe had crossed she’d been heavily pregnant with Pebbles, her daughter, and it’d been a hard trip.

“Oh totally,” Shine agreed, “look the weather’s warmer than it’s ever been,” Shine pointed out, “we could go to the big-salt-lake and stay there for the winter. I’m sure we’d be fine!”

“No argument from me,” agreed Dusk, the walk down to the big-salt-lake was easier than climbing up over the mountain passes, “there’s good caves down there and plenty to hunt or so Lone-Hunter says.”

Lone-Hunter was Dusk’s mate and the best hunter in the clan; he’d travelled far to the big-salt-lake earlier in the summer, ‘just to see it’ he’d told Dusk. To be honest, Dusk thought the real reason was that her mate had gone for a whole moon of days was that he wanted to get away from crying babies and a mate he couldn’t snuggle properly.

“No lions?” Shine asked nervously, if there was one thing in the world Shine was frightened of it was lions.

So, she’d hunted down the two lions that had killed and eaten her mother; Shine and her mate, Dark, used their skins to sleep in and snuggle on, but she still didn’t like lions. Night-walkers and night-monsters in general left her unafraid, but lions made her blood run cold.

“No lions,” Dusked smiled reassuringly at her sister, “so, you couldn’t have spent all morning talking about moving the tribe.” Dusk smiled eagerly, one day she wanted to be Mother of the Clan and later maybe even Mother of the Tribe, so, she needed to know about what went on at these meetings.

“Oh, just some other stuff,” Shine wouldn’t meet her sister’s eye for a moment so she busied herself adjusting her boob-sling seeing how her daughter had finished eating.

“What other stuff?” Dusk wanted to know.

“Oh, you know…” Shine shrugged, “…stuff.”

“Oh Shine,” Dusk whined a little, “why don’t you tell me these things I’m not a little girl anymore!”

“No, that’s plain to see,” Shine replied with a smirk as she glanced at her sister’s breasts; Lone-Hunter must have thought all his birthdays had come at once when Dusk started to breastfeed.

“Jealous,” Dusk slapped her sister’s shoulder, Shine’s breasts hadn’t grown that much in size since she’d given birth to Bright.

“So, like, where is everyone?” Shine asked changing the subject, she didn’t want to talk about what else had happened at the meeting, at least not yet.

“Chase and Star are out gathering,” Dusk counted off the members of the clan on her fingers, “Dark and Lone-Hunter are out with the men hunting. One-Eye’s looking for flints up by the cliff and Elm is picking mushrooms,” Dusk giggled, “she says they’re for a potion but I think she just wants to get high.”

“That leaves Moon-Wolf and Night-Watcher,” Shine pointed out.

“Ha!” Dusk laughed and shrugged her shoulders, “It’s anyone guess where Moon-Wolf is and Night-Watcher wandered off muttering about his cave paintings again.”

“Which way did he go?” now Bright had finished eating, Shine passed her baby back to her sister as she looked around for any sign of her old mentor.

“That way,” Dusk pointed towards the river and then realised what her sister was going to do, “Hey! Shine you’re not going off again.”

“I’ll be back soon,” Shine reassured her as she got to her feet and started to walk towards the river.

“Yeah!” Dusk cried angrily, “After I’ve cleaned up the babies and everything…”

“Whatever…” Shine waved over her shoulder as she headed determinedly towards the trees.

“Y’know,” Dusk shouted, “for a Mother you’re a real bad mother!”

“Am not!” Shine called back with a laugh.

“Are too,” Dusk replied grumpily as her sister disappeared towards the woods..

0=0=0=0

**A Tardis not so very far away.**

Nothing could be heard inside the Tardis except for the hum made by its incomprehensible machinery and the ticking of metal as it cooled. Waking up slowly, Barbara Wright found herself sitting in an old wooden chair. Straightening up she felt momentarily dizzy, looking around she saw Doctor and Susan Foreman standing over by the machine’s control panel talking quietly. At her feet, Ian Chesterton, her friend and fellow teacher from the Coal Hill Secondary School, lay still and unconscious. Reaching down she took hold of his shoulder and tried to shake him awake.

“Ian?” Barbara called softly, then when Ian didn’t stir immediately she called his name again this time he groaned and asked that age old question.

“Where am I?” he started to push himself up into a sitting position, turning to Barbara he forced a smile, “I’m all right.” He rubbed the back of is skull as he sat at Barbara’s feet still not completely trusting himself to stand up, “I must have hit my head,” getting to his knees he paused and looked at Barbara again, “the movement’s stopped!”

“The Tardis is steady,” Susan (who until only half an hour ago both Ian and Barbara thought was an ordinary, if a little odd, fifteen year old girl) said as she moved some controls on the control panel.

“Trees,” Doctor Foreman seemed to be staring at something on the wall of the cabin, “good, hmm?”

“We’ve left 1963, then,” Susan observed.

“Oh, yes undoubtedly,” Doctor Foreman reached across the control panel and flicked a couple of switches; as far as Ian and Barbara could see this action changed nothing. “I’ll be able to tell you where and when presently…” the Doctor paused for a moment as he studied a read out, “…zero? That’s not right, I’m afraid this yearometer is not calculating properly again…Hm!” He added with just a hint of annoyance and then went on to say, “Well, the journey’s finished…” he turned to look at Ian and Barbara for the first time since they’d ‘landed’, “What are you doing down there?”

“What have you done?” Barbara demanded.

“Barbara?” Ian, who was still kneeling on the floor looked up at his friend, “You don’t believe all this nonsense do you?”

“Well, look at the scanner screen,” Susan pointed to what looked like a TV screen up on the wall.

“Yes, look up there,” the Doctor added with a smirk, before looking at his granddaughter, “they don’t understand and I suspect they don’t want to,” turning back to the two teachers the Doctor gestured to the screen, “Well, there you are, a new world for you…”

“Trees?” Ian asked.

“Yes,” agreed the Doctor, “that’s the immediate view outside the ship.”

“But where are we?” Barbara wanted to know thinking they’d somehow been transported to one of London’s many parks, maybe Richmond Deer Park.

“You mean that’s what we’ll see when we go outside?” Ian demanded still thinking this was some sort of trick.

“Yes,” Susan pointed out eagerly, “you’ll see it for yourself.”

“I don’t believe it!” Ian laughed to cover his own nervousness, what if it was true, what then?

“You really are a stubborn young man,” the Doctor said shaking his head pityingly.

“All right,” Ian scoffed, “show me some proof, give me some hard evidence!” Ian turned to look at Susan as the Doctor marched off around the control panel, “I’m sorry Susan, I don’t want to hurt your feelings but its time you were brought back down to earth!”

“But you’re wrong Mr Chesterton,” Susan insisted.

“They’re saying I'm a charlatan,” the Doctor pointed out as he walked further around the control panel, “What evidence would satisfy you, hmm?”

“Just open the doors,” Ian called.

“They’re so sure Ian,” Barbara pointed out to the sceptical science teacher. 

“Yes I know,” Ian agreed.

“And remember the difference between the inside and outside of the police box,” Barbara continued earnestly.

“Yes I know…” Ian turned away from Barbara to look at the Doctor again and demanded, “…are you going to open the doors or aren’t you?”

“No…” the Doctor replied.

“You see?” Ian looked at Barbara triumphantly believing he’d exposed the doctor as a fraud.

“…not until I’m quite sure it’s safe to do so,” the Doctor sneered; he moved to study some readouts, “Well, yes, good,” he nodded his head, “Yes, yes it’s good,” he glanced at a big dial that looked as if it had been taken from a power station's control room, “Excellent! Excellent!” He pointed out a readout to Susan who was now standing next to him, “Have you got the radiation counter there? What does it read?”

“Its reading nothing but background radiation, Grandfather,” Susan replied after looking at another dial.

“Splendid, splendid,” muttered the Doctor happily, “well, I think I’ll take my Geiger counter with me in any case,” the Doctor glanced up at Ian, “So, you, erm still challenge me, young man?”

“Well,” Ian smiled believing he’d won his argument, “just open the doors and prove your point.”

“Oh don’t be so insular,” harrumphed the Doctor.

“Grandfather,” Susan called, “do you know where we are?”

“Yes,” the Doctor replied holding on to his lapels, “not exactly mind but after I’ve taken a few samples I’ll be able to give you a good estimate, but we’ve gone back in time alright.”

“So you say we’ve gone back in time,” Ian spoke once more, “so when we go out of that door we won’t be in a London scrapyard in 1963?”

“Quite so,” agreed the Doctor.

“All right then,” Ian crossed his arms over his chest, “open the doors.”

“Susan,” the Doctor gestured to his granddaughter, “open the doors.”

Moving to her right a little, Susan pulled a lever on the control panel before turning around to watch the doors open.

Slowly the doors swung open to reveal a dense forest and let in the sound of strange bird song and the scent of unfamiliar flowers.

“Oh bugger!” Ian breathed quietly.

0=0=0=0

A note about characters; by this time our cave friends have morphed into their own original characters and only bear a passing resemblance to the originals. Also, for ease of writing and reading they mostly speak colloquial English and not 'cave-speak'.

The Tribe of the Cave Slayer.

The Valley Clan.  
Shine (19), Mother of the Clan and One-Girl (Buffy).  
Dark (20), Shine’s mate and another One-Girl (Faith).  
Bright (1) Shine’s daughter (OC).

Dusk (16), Shine’s sister, mate to Lone-Hunter (Dawn).  
Lone-Hunter (24), Chief hunter of the Valley Clan, mate to Dusk (sort of Riley).  
Pebbles (1), Dusk and Lone-Hunter’s daughter (OC).

Night-Watcher (41), Shaman to the Clan and Shine’s step-father (Giles).  
Star (26), Gatherer and Night-Watcher’s mate (Olivia).  
Happy (6), Stone (3) Star’s sons by a previous mate (OC’s).  
Lucky (2), Night-Watcher’s son with Shine and Dusk’s mother(Joyce) who was eaten by lions.

Moon-Wolf (23), a man-wolf (a wolf that turns into a man at the time of the full moon), mate to Elm (Oz).  
Elm (19), Wise Woman to the clan and Moon-wolf's mate (Willow).  
Cub (4), Moon-Wolf and Elm’s son conceived when Moon-Wolf was a wolf (OC).  
Giggle (1), Moon-Wolf and Elm’s daughter, conceived when Moon-Wolf was a man (OC).

One-Eye (21), tool maker and inventor, mate to Chase (Xander).  
Chase (19), Gatherer/clan matchmaker and mate to One-Eye (Cordelia).  
Stig (2), One-Eye and Chase’s son (OC).

Fast-River Clan.  
Long-Spear (22), hunter and mate to Moon (OC).  
Moon (20), Wise woman and mate to Long-Spear (Tara).  
Cloud (4), Long-Spear and Moon’s daughter (OC).  
Flint (1), Long-Spear and Moon’s son (OC).

Blue-Eyes (17), Young hunter and wannabe mate of Flower (OC)  
Flower (13), Young gatherer and wannabe mate of Blue-Eyes (OC).

Other Tribal Characters.

Berry (39), a foolish woman, leader of the Council of Mothers.  
Clever-Fingers (36), older tool maker who wants to mate with Flower.

Time Travellers.

Doctor Foreman (The Doctor), a Timelord.  
Susan Foreman, a Timelord's granddaughter.  
Barbara Wright, a reluctant time traveller and history teacher.  
Ian Chesterton, another reluctant time traveller and science teacher. 


	2. Chapter 2

2.

“Hey!” Shine came to stand behind Night-Watcher who was crouched over a skin pegged out in the sunlight by the river bank, “What-cha-doin’ Night-Watcher?”

“Oh!” the old shaman sat up and turned to look at Shine, “I didn’t hear your arrive…”

“Just as well I wasn’t a lion or something,” Shine smiled as she sat down cross legged next to her old teacher, “like I said; what-cha-doin’?”

“Ah,” with a groan of stiff bones, Night-Watcher sat back on his haunches, “well, I’m glad you asked me that…”

“And I’d be glad when I get an answer,” Shine was starting to feel edgy now; her joking comment about lions had reminded her that the only weapon she’d got with her was her flint knife, she’d forgotten to bring either her spear or sling.

“Well you see its my eyes,” Night-Watcher sighed sadly, “you know they’re not what they once were and crawling down into the bottom of a cave isn’t as easy as it used to be either.”

“You don’t seem to have any problems snuggling Star,” Shine pointed out trying to cheer her old friend up.

“I can assure you young Shine,” Night-Watcher whispered confidentially, “its Star who does most of the work these days.”

“Hey!” Shine tried to point out the bright side, “At least Star still has something to work with!”

“You’re a good woman Shine,” Night-Watcher patted her leg in a fatherly way, “and I’m proud to have you as my not-real-daughter and One-Girl. But the truth is I’m getting old my eyes are getting worse every winter and there’s still so much I’ve not had time to teach you. So,” he gestured to the skin, “I thought I’d draw all you needed to know on skins like these…”

“Oh,” Shine looked at the skin with its little drawings of night-monsters being killed in various ways by a little stick figure with light coloured hair, “I see, that’s me right?” Shine pointed to a figure taking the head off a horned night-monster with a big axe, “so, where’s Dark?” Shine looked for a representation of her mate, “She’s a One-Girl too, she might get upset if you only draw me killing the night-monsters.”

“Yes! Of course, you’re right,” Night-Watcher nodded his head, “how very stupid of me…”

Yes, Night-Watcher told himself, it had never entered his mind to show Dark killing the Night-Monsters, particularly how she killed more of them these days than Shine did. The truth was that Shine had never felt comfortable with being the One-Girl for the tribe. Yes, she did her duty as a One-Girl should, but she’d never really had her heart in it. On the other hand Dark loved the killing and the fighting, she was always eager to hunt down a new Night-Monster and plunge her spear into its heart or chop off its head.

“Don’t worry about it,” Shine placed her hand on her not-real-father’s shoulder, “Dark’s never been one to look at drawings much. So, these will be like cave paintings we can take wherever we go?”

“Yes that’s right…ugh!” Night-Watcher fell backwards with surprise as Shine leaped at him and kissed him on the cheek. “What was that for?”

“Because you’re so clever,” Shine smiled, it felt to her as if the Great Mother was smiling down on her.

“I am?” Night-Watcher knew he was clever but Shine rarely celebrated his cleverness by kissing him.

“This falls in nicely with a plan I have,” Shine settled down in the grass and put her arm around Night-Watchers shoulders, “listen and I’ll tell you all about it.”

0=0=0=0

**A dark, dank cave deep in the forest.**

The cave was situated at the foot of a cliff that cut through the northern part of the forest where Shine and her people had set up home. Had Shine's tribe known that the cave and its inhabitants were there they would have hurried to it and wiped out the band of Beast-men that lived there in darkness and squalor; there was no love lost between Beast-men and Shine's people.

Near the mouth of the main cave, no more than a few paces from the entrance was an altar-like stone. The surface of the stone was stained dark brown, almost black, with dried blood; this was were the hunters of the band would kill the creatures they caught. Today however the altar was being used for a less bloody purpose. Kneeling next to the stone Zaa rubbed two old bones between his hands as he held them over a pile of dry twigs and grass.

His heavy face was creased with anger and frustration as he rubbed the bones harder and faster but achieved nothing. Throwing the bones to one side Zaa looked at his mate who'd been kneeling beside him, she looked worried and frightened. Feeling the need to release some of the anger and frustration that had built up inside him he cuffed the female across the side of her head with one large, powerful hand. The female cried out in pain and cowered away from her mate as she wondered what she had done to make her mate hit her so hard.

Sitting back on his haunches, Zaa felt better now he'd hit something, he glanced at his mate and almost felt regret for hitting her. But he now felt better, more able to think clearly so he supposed he'd done the right thing. He sat and looked at the dead fire and tried to puzzle out why it wouldn't live, he'd done everything he could think of to make the fire live again, but it had stayed stubbornly dead. The fire had died a hand of days ago and if he didn't get it to live again he'd be killed and eaten by the rest of the band.

When he was small, Zaa remembered his father coming home with a burning brand stolen from the new-men who'd lived further down the valley from where the band had its cave. From that moment on Zaa's father had become the leader of the band and the band had had a fire. The fire had burnt in the mouth of the cave keeping the lions and other beasts that preyed on the band away. The band had quickly learnt to cook the meat they ate over the fire and the band's members had grown stronger and didn't die or get sick so often.

But now the fire had died, the female who's job it was to keep the fire fed with wood had been killed but that hadn't caused the fire to spring back to life. After two days with no fire the band agreed that they should steal more fire from the new-men and had marched through the forest to a new-man settlement. There hiding at the edge of the forest the band had looked at all the strange little hide caves that the new-men lived in and became afraid. No one could remember seeing so many new-men in one place before.

No one had seen so many strong hunters gathered together all armed with well made spears with the sharp stone points and the strips of hide that the new-men hunters somehow threw rocks with. Even the new-man females and older children had the throwing hides and could easily kill creatures if they were foolish enough to attack. Slowly and in despair the band melted back into the forest, but Zaa had stayed to watch.

The band stole most things off the new-men, hadn't his father stolen fire from them? Now Zaa was thinking that he might be able to see how the new-men made fire. He knew from watching the new-men that they didn't worry so much about their fires going out, so he reasoned, they must know the magic that made new fire come alive. Lying down in the shadows, Zaa watched and waited, he'd spotted a dead, grey fire in the middle of a circle of hide-caves. His primitive brain told him that if the new-men were going to make new fire that would be the spot were they would make it.

The sun was high overhead and Zaa had been dozing in the shade when his senses told him to wake up. Snapping back to full consciousness he checked out his surroundings for danger. Finding none he looked towards the new-man camp. He saw the new-man females moving around the camp or sitting in front of their little hide caves doing incomprehensible tasks like making one thing into another completely different thing. Zaa whimpered in fear as he watched, what the females were doing looked too much like magic to him and he'd almost lost his nerve and ran away.

However, the knowledge that the band would surely kill and eat him held him in place. Lying there watching the camp his eyes fell on one of the new-man females as she walked between the hide caves. His eyes followed her as she crouched down next to the dead fire. Zaa's eyes grew wider as he saw the female pick up some strange tool and start to move it back and forth against a straight piece of wood that she held upright in her other hand. Smiling Zaa realised that he was watching new fire being made and he had been right all along, making new fire did involve rubbing a stick or bone between your hands. The reason he'd not been able to make any new fire live was he didn't have the same magic sticks as the new-man female had.

Watching, Zaa had to bite his tongue to stop himself crying out with joy as he watched a thin haze of grey smoke rise from the female's fire. When he saw the first flames he did actually yelp with joy but it was such an animal-like sound that he doubted any of the new-men would notice. Grinning so hard it hurt, Zaa slowly worked out what he needed to do. It was obvious to him that it was the new-man females who held the secret of how to make new fire come alive; didn't females give birth to young? They must be able to do the same with new fire. All he needed to do was to hunt and capture a new-man female, make her give birth to some new-fire and then he, Zaa would kill her and eat her and absorb her magic after which he'd be able to make fire and the band wouldn't kill and eat him.

0=0=0=0

**The Camp.**

Holding her hair back so it wouldn't get caught by the flames, Moon breathed life into the fire. Satisfied that the fire was alive again she sat back and smiled at how easy Dark's fire making tools had made life. No longer did children or old women have to sit by the fire feeding it with new wood. Now the children could play or help their mothers and fathers. Now the old women could pass on their knowledge to the children without having to worry about always having to keep one eye on the fire and collecting fuel.

Turning, Moon picked up her daughter, Cloud, and placed her in her lap where she wouldn't stumble into the fire. Cloud was only one winter old and hadn't yet learnt that while fire was a friend it could be a dangerous friend. Eventually Cloud would touch fire and learn that fire could hurt her, but Moon wanted to be near when that happened so her little girl wouldn't be eaten by the fire.

“T-there,” Moon cooed as she got her daughter comfortable in her lap, “y-you w-watch Mama make a p-poltice for s-silly o-old L-long-Arm.”

Long-Arm had gashed his hand when the men had been out hunting and the wound had started to fester. Now Moon would need to make a poultice to draw the poison out so the hunter wouldn't die. As she gathered the poultice's ingredients around her Moon paused and looked up. Her magics were telling her that someone or something was watching her. Searching the forest edge with narrowed eyes, Moon was just about to cast an 'all seeing' spell when her daughter latched on to her nipple and started to suck greedily.

“Cloud!” Moon laughed as she forgot all about the things that might be watching her from the trees.

Shifting her little girl into a more comfortable position, Moon put a stone container of fresh river water on the fire and started to chop up the herbs she needed for the poultice. When she again thought about the feeling of being watched, she told herself that it was probably an animal and it was nothing to worry about.

0=0=0=0

**A flower meadow deep in the wood.**

Standing in the sun dappled shadows at the edge of the forest, Elm watched the meadow for danger. The grass swayed as the pretty blue and yellow flowers danced in the wind. Closing her eyes, Elm concentrated really hard as she used her magics to search for dangers, there were none. Opening her eyes again, she smiled before looking down to where Cub crouched next to her legs, the boy-wolf looked up expectantly at his mother.

“Go on then,” Elm gestured towards the meadow.

Not needing to be told twice, Cub scampered out into the open. Running through the soft green grass he made strange, barking-like noises that Elm recognised as his version of laughter. Shifting the weight of the sling that carried Giggle, her daughter, across her chest Elm walked out into the sunlight and breathed deeply. She could smell the trees and the flowers, she could even smell Cub when he was up wind of her and closer at hand, Giggle who slept with her head resting against her breast. Walking across the meadow, Elm reached down and snagged a handful of yellow flowers, transferring one to her mouth she bit the head off and started to chew.

“Tasty,” Elm smiled, noticing that Giggle was awake, she offered a new flower head to her daughter.

The child giggled and took the flower but didn't eat it like her mother had, instead she started to rip it apart with her chubby little fingers. Sometimes Giggle ate solids but mostly she relied on her mother's milk, but one day soon Elm knew she'd have to get her to start eating meat and leaves and roots and all the good things that the clan and tribe ate.

Seeing what looked like a good spot, Elm sat down in the long grass and ate another flower head. She'd told everyone that she was looking for mushrooms, the type that gave her visions and helped her see the future. In reality she'd just wanted to get away from the camp. There were just too many people around when the tribe joined together for the summer hunting, it made it hard for her to think and there was a lot for her to think about.

Every since the Big Black Stone had appeared outside the clan's cave last spring things had changed. It seemed to Elm that every day someone in the clan had thought up something new or a better way of doing something old. Plus all these new things and new ideas had to have new names and words made for them. It was all very hard and it made her brain tired. Alright, yes the other Wise Women helped but honestly, Elm thought they were more of a trouble than a help although Moon was nice and she helped Elm a lot. Taking Giggle out of her carrying sling (another new thing that no one had thought of before the black stone had appeared) she set the child down on the grass beside her.

“There you go sweetheart,” Elm said as she pulled her collecting bag around in front of her, “you play but don't go too far...CUB!” Elm called to her son, “You keep an eye on your sister, right?”

Halting in mid-run, Cub looked at his mother and then at the little creature that was his sister, he growled softly in his throat.

“Any more talk like that, young man,” Elm snapped, “and I'll leave you out for the lions.”

Cub whimpered quietly, he was fairly sure his mother wouldn't really leave him to be eaten by lions, but it was better to be safe than eaten. He decided that he could still play and keep a watch over his sister if he used his sister as prey to perfect his stalking skills. Yes, he smiled, that was a fine idea for once in her life Giggle would actually be useful.

Searching in her bag, Elm brought forth the object. It was carved from bone and it had been Chase's idea. The thing had little teeth or claws and you drew them through your hair. Not only did it get the little creatures that made your head itch out of your hair, but it made your hair look nicer. All these things were good, the clan females often sat around pulling the little claws through each others hair, but the thing was, what did you call such a useful tool?

You couldn't keep calling it a hair-claw or some such it needed a proper name. It was a little like lip-nuzzling. No one in the tribe had ever thought of touching lips to show affection before Dark had arrived. First Dark had done it to Shine who'd then told her friend how really nice it was. After Shine had shown all the clan women how to do it they'd gone off and taught it to their mates. After that lip-nuzzling had spread through the tribe like a wild fire. Now everyone did it like they'd always done it but it had needed a name.

After many attempts, the wise women had chosen 'kissing' for no real reason other that the word sounded like the action and they were all tired and fed up and wanted to go off and 'kiss' their mates. As 'kissing' usually led to snuggling this was thought a much better idea than sitting around a fire deep into the night trying to think of names for things. But that didn't really help Elm just at the moment, she still needed a name for her hair-claw.

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

3.

**The treeline surrounding the meadow.**

“SHHH!” Ian held up his hand to bring everyone to a halt as they neared the edge of the forest.

“Oh what's wrong now?” demanded the Doctor; he was annoyed that the young man had usurped his position as leader; life had been easier when it had just been Susan and himself travelling through time and space, Susan didn't argue with him.

“Keep your voice down,” Ian replied in a loud whisper, “there's a clearing up ahead and I though I saw movement.”

“Let me see,” with an ill grace the Doctor pushed himself passed Ian and walked up to the edge of the forest; catching sight of the woman sitting in the middle of the meadow he smiled, “Interesting...”

After leaving the Tardis the little group of time travellers had walked through the forest for almost an hour. They'd seen many interesting and usual species of flora, there had been animals as well but most of them were either similar to or copies of species from their own time. However, until now they'd seen no sign that there might be humans or proto-humans around. Now there was at least one female sitting no more than fifty or sixty yards away.

“Interesting,” the Doctor repeated quietly, now he'd seen the primitive he didn't want to frighten the creature away, “Cro-Magnon if I'm not mistaken.”

“Cro-Magnon,” Ian gave the Doctor a disbelieving look, “but that's impossible, they...”

“Impossible?” the Doctor gave Ian a superior look, “My dear boy you forget we've travelled back in time.”

“So you say,” Ian muttered under his breath.

He was still finding it hard to believe the Doctor's claims of time travel, deep down where it mattered he still thought this was all some gigantic hoax. However, that still didn't alter the fact that no more than fifty yards away a semi naked woman sat looking down at something in her hands. Looking more closely, Ian could see what looked like a naked toddler laughing as some kind of dog ran around her in circles. Looking closely at the 'dog' he realised it was in fact a small boy but one that was covered in hair or fur.

“Is that normal?” Ian pointed to the boy as Barbara and Susan came up to join the group.

“I'm not sure,” this was the first time that the Doctor had admitted to being unsure about anything in Ian's hearing, turning towards Ian the Doctor smiled, “lets go and find out!”

Without another word the Doctor burst out of the tree line and started to walk briskly towards where the woman sat. The woman's head snapped up sharply as she became aware of movement. Jumping to her feet she shouted to the boy as she scooped up the toddler into her arms.

“Be careful,” called Barbara, “don't frighten her!”

0=0=0=0

**The Meadow.**

Crawling on his belly through the long grass, Cub had just got into a good position from which he could pounce on his sister. Then just as he was tensing his muscles to leap his mother called to him in that tone of voice that he knew had to be obeyed. Whining quietly, Cub stood up and looked around for his mother. Seeing her stooping to pick up Giggle, Cub trotted over to her reluctantly, he might obey his mother but that didn't mean he had to like it. How was he supposed to learn how to hunt if his mother kept interrupting him? It was only as he got near to his mother that he noticed the fearful look on her face, the hairs on his shoulders started to rise and he began to growl deep in his throat, there was something wrong.

Scampering over to stand next to his mother, Cub saw her pick up Giggle and hold the girl protectively against her chest. Looking over the tops of the grass in the direction his mother was staring, Cub saw almost a hand's full of people coming towards his mother and his sister. They were very strange looking people and they smelt funny. Cub's growling got louder as he walked stiff legged towards the strangers.

“CUB!” Cub turned at the sound of his mother's voice. “Cub!” Elm called again this time managing to distract Cub from growling at the strangers, “Run to the village and bring back hunters!”

Cub whined, he didn't want to leave his mother not when she might be hurt by the strangers.

“Go Cub!” Willow pointed in the direction of the village when her son seemed reluctant to move, “Run!”

Looking from his mother and then to the strangers, Cub couldn't at first decide what to do; he wanted to stay here and defend his mother, but he also knew he had to obey her. Whining loudly and with a certain amount of reluctance, he finally turned and ran as fast as he could towards the village.

0=0=0=0

“Look the dog-boy's running off,” Ian pointed to where the strange child ran through the grass towards the treeline.

“I wonder why he's covered in fur like that?” Barbara asked.

“Oh, I expect its some sort of mutation or disease,” the Doctor replied as he marched towards were the woman stood with her other child held in her arms, “look the baby seems quite normal...but what's interesting me more is why the woman has red hair.”

“You're interested in her hair?” Ian scoffed, “For god's sake why?”

“Ha!” the Doctor mocked, “Do you know nothing...?”

“Obviously not,” Ian muttered darkly.

“Things like different hair colour should not have developed until after the rise of Homo-sapiens, this creature,” the Doctor pointed to the woman, “as I have mentioned before, is obviously Cro-Magnon and as a result should have black or dark brown hair.”

“Maybe she dyed it,” Susan suggested and sniggered too quietly for her grandfather to hear.

“What?” the Doctor stopped for a moment and looked down at Susan, “Don't be silly, girl how could she? Come along now...”

The Doctor continued on his match towards the increasingly nervous looking cave-woman. After exchanging bemused glances the rest of the party followed in his wake.

“Ian,” Barbara called as she moved to walk next to her friend, “she looks very frightened, I don't think this is a very good idea...”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Ian shrugged, “I'm more interested in what she's got in that bag of hers...”

0=0=0=0

Standing amid the grass and the flowers, Elm watched as the strangers moved closer. Knowing that she wouldn't be able to outpace them, especially if she was carrying Giggle, Elm had decided to stand her ground. Having sent Cub for help, she knew that if she could keep these frightening people at bay for a little while the hunters would come and kill or capture them however strange they were. Thrusting her spare hand into her medicine bag, Elm let her fingers run over its contents while she kept a careful watch on the advancing strangers.

Her fingers recognised her knife and the mushrooms she'd collected that morning, she didn't want any of those things she didn't even want her charm stick that hung from the strap of her bag. As soon as she'd seen the strangers Elm had realised that this wasn't a time for magic. It was like Shine said; some times a club over the head beats magic. With a cry of relief, Elm found what she was looking for, pulling her sling from her bag she set Giggle down on the ground by her feet before taking a smooth, heavy pebble from the pouch that hung from the belt around her waist. Placing the stone in the pocket of the sling she began to whirl it around her head.

0=0=0=0

“A sling!” Ian cried out the warning as the time travellers came to a halt.

“Interesting,” the Doctor mused, “come on I'm sure there's nothing to fear...”

“Nothing to fear?” Ian gasped, “Ask Goliath if there's nothing to fear.”

“What?” the Doctor looked at Ian as if he was mad.

“The sling is probably the simplest weapon to make and very effective at close rang,” Ian pointed at the cave-woman, “and I'm betting that she knows how to use that thing.” 

“Nonsense, dear boy,” the Doctor scoffed as he recommenced his advance, “there's nothing to fear, I've been studying these primitive cultures since before you were born...OOH!”

0=0=0=0

At first Elm didn't know who to loose her pebble at. Of the four strangers the younger male looked the most dangerous but he also seemed to be the one most reluctant to continue the advance. The older male; he looked very old, older even than Night-Watcher, seemed the most eager to come towards her. Perhaps he wanted to take her as a mate, the older female who was probably his mate didn't look very attractive, not like the young female who was probably the mate of the younger male.

Thinking quickly, Elm decided that the older male must be the group's shaman or leader, she'd deal with him first but she wouldn't kill, not yet. Whirling her sling extra hard as it flew around her head, Elm let loose the free end and sent the stone flying so fast through the air that the stone seemed to blur in its flight. The stone came within a couple of finger widths of the old man's head making him cry out in alarm, it also brought the rest of the group to a halt. Quickly taking another stone from her pouch, Elm soon had the sling whirling around her head again. If the strangers came at her again she'd kill the younger male and maybe even have time to bring down the shaman. Elm wasn't at all worried about the two females, she was a mother defending her child so she had no doubt she could gut both females with her knife.

0=0=0=0

**The river near the village.**

“...so, what do you think?” Shine asked Night-Watcher as her finger traced the outline of one of the night-monsters the old shaman had drawn on the skin.

“Let me see if I understand you correctly,” Night-Watcher sat with his back resting against a stone and regarded Shine intently. “You're suggesting that instead of crossing the mountains before winter you lead the tribe to the big-salt-lake and spend the winter there?”

“That's right!” Shine smiled hopefully at her old teacher, “Look Night-Watcher,” she continued earnestly, “the winters aren't as cold as they used to be and Lone-Hunter says there's plenty to hunt and there's caves and fresh water and we won't lose so many females and children and...”

“Yes,” Night-Watcher held up his hand to bring Shine's babble to a halt before she ran out of breath, “I understand...” he paused in thought for a moment, “...its true, when I was a boy winters lasted a lot longer and were a lot colder than they are now. But the tribe has been crossing the mountains every spring and autumn from time out of mind, however...” Night-Watcher held up his hand to forestall Shine's next outburst, “...each year we lose pregnant females, children and old people to the crossing...” Night-Watcher paused again as he considered the problem, “...you say Lone-Hunter has seen plenty of game and other food along with the caves we'd need to live in?”

“Yes!” Shine replied eagerly.

“Then I must think on this,” Night-Watcher closed his eyes and started to 'think', very soon he was thinking so hard that he started to snore.

“Oh,” Shine looked at Night-Watcher and realised she'd not get an answer from him until he'd 'thought' about her suggestion really hard. 

Getting to her feet, Shine was just in time to see a flash of grey fur with red tips running towards the village.

“CUB!” she cried recognising her friend's child; the wolf-boy came to a halt, his arms and legs seemingly going in different directions all at the same time, looking around he saw Shine and ran over to her. “Where are you going in such a hurry, Cub, where's your Mom?”

Cub whined and growled as he pointed back the way he'd just come.

“Oh my!” Shine gasped, “You mean your mom's being attacked by three...” Shine frowned as Cub whined and growled some more, “...sorry, four strangers in the old flower meadow?”

Cub nodded his head.

“Weapons!” Shine cried as she turned to face Night-Watcher who'd woken up and grabbing a spear, he tossed it to Shine, “I'll go, you and Cub get more hunters and send them to help!”

“RUN!” Night-Watcher cried as he watched his One-Girl run to the rescue of her friend.

0=0=0=0

**The Meadow.**

“GRANDFATHER!” Susan cried as she rushed to the Doctor's side; the old man was sitting in the grass a shocked look on his face, he'd really not expected the woman to launch her stone at him. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes,” the Doctor patted his granddaughter’s hand to reassure her he was uninjured.

“I told you we were frightening her,” Barbara cried accusingly.

Looking around for some sort of weapon, Ian saw nothing. Looking up he watched as the woman whirled her sling slowly around her head. He decided it was time for him to do something like disarm this obviously dangerous woman and maybe get some answers to all the questions that were filling his head. Deep down he still believed that this was all some kind of hoax, that the woman had missed deliberately because she didn't really want to hurt anyone. If he could get close enough he should be able to disarm her and get her to tell him what he wanted to know.

Crouching down, Ian started to run at the cave-woman. He'd noticed her increase the speed with which she whirled her sling just before she launched the stone at him. Jinking to the left he heard the stone whistle by his ear. Ian had played rugby at school and later at teacher training college, in fact he still played at the weekends during the winter so he was pretty fit. Catching the woman around the waist he brought her crashing to the ground. 

The woman screamed an extra loud scream as she fell to the grass covered ground and grabbed for something in her bag. Ian found he was having more trouble than he'd expected he would have keeping hold of the woman, she screamed and bit and scratched and kicked as she tried to break his hold on her. However after a couple of minutes the woman began to tire and he was able to hold her down. Just as he thought the fight was over, Ian heard Barbara call a warning a second before some thing hit him across the shoulders with a heavy stick.

0=0=0=0


	4. Chapter 4

4.

**Near the meadow.**

Coming to a halt just inside the tree line, Shine looked across the meadow to see her friend, Elm struggling with a strange male. For a moment she was so shocked by the appearance of the male and the rest of the strangers that she didn't charge straight in to save her friend.

“AYE, AYE, HAAA!” Shine yelled her hunting cry as moments later she ran towards the struggling pair, spear held at the ready.

Hearing one of the strange females call a warning, Shine increased her pace and before the male who'd attacked Elm could do anything she'd brought the butt of her spear crashing down on the male's shoulder. The male cried out in pain as he slumped down on top of Elm who gave a startled grunt as the man crushed her beneath him. Grabbing hold of the man's skins, Shine threw him to one side just in time to feel the two females crash into her. Lashing out with her spear, Shine knocked both females to the ground.

“GIGGLE!” Elm cried pointed to where her daughter sat crying amongst the grass and flowers.

Moving swiftly, Shine positioned herself so she could move to protect both Elm and Giggle.

“Grab Giggle and get behind me,” Shine ordered as she threatened the strangers with her spear, she wouldn't move to kill them unless they tried to attack again; her tribe didn't like to kill other 'people', but that didn't mean that she wouldn't.

Crawling over to where Giggle screamed in the grass, Elm gathered her daughter to her breast and started to croon softly to her. Almost immediately, Giggle calmed down as she clung to her mother.

“Who are you?” Shine demanded of the strangers as she jabbed her spear in their direction, “Why did you attack Elm?” this time Shine took a step towards the interlopers as she stabbed at them again, “Answer or taste my spear!”

0=0=0=0

“Bloody hell, where did she come from?” Ian cried as he lay in the grass, his shoulders still smarting from the blow the short, blonde cave-woman had so recently delivered.

“Hmmm!” Hmm-ed the Doctor as he stood well out of range of the blonde and her spear, “Most interesting...”

“What?” Ian demanded incredulously, just at the moment 'interesting' wasn't the word he'd use to describe the situation.

“Hmm, what?” the Doctor looked distractedly over to where Ian lay.

“What's so interesting?” Ian wanted to know.

“Women with weapons, dear boy,” the Doctor spoke as if he was talking to an imbecile, “in these very primitive cultures it was taboo for a woman to even touch a weapon let alone use one.”

“Well this one seems to know what she's doing,” Ian replied; being bested by a woman and such a short one had dented his male ego just a little.

“The woman with the sling seemed pretty knowledgeable too,” Susan observed, “perhaps in this tribe women do use weapons for self defence.”

“I hardly think so,” the Doctor laughed at Susan's suggestion.

“Erm,” Barbara gestured to the spear wielding woman, “does anyone else think its odd that she's wearing a fur bikini?”

“I say!” the Doctor stepped towards the blonde only to have his legs swept out from under him by the woman's spear and its sharp flint point presented at his throat.”

“Doctor,” Ian sighed heavily, “I don't think she appreciates being spoken to like that.”

0=0=0=0

“Elm, are you and Giggle all right?” Shine asked after she'd knocked the shaman to the floor and held her spear head to his throat.

“Yeah I'm fine,” Elm was standing behind Shine with Giggle firmly in her arms now, “like, who are these people?”

“I was hoping you could totally tell me,” Shine glanced over her shoulder at Elm, “they're weird all these odd skins they're wearing.”

“And on such a warm day too,” Elm added, “no wonder they smell funny.”

“Smell funny,” Shine hadn't noticed, but now it had been pointed out to her she sniffed at the strangers herself, “Eww,” Shine crinkled up her nose, “weird!”

0=0=0=0

“What do you think they're saying?” Barbara asked as she moved carefully to where she could help Ian to his feet.

“If I didn't know better,” Ian gasped as he let Barbara haul him upright, “I'd say they were complaining about the way we smell!”

“About the way _we_ smell?” Barbara was about to add something along the lines of how badly the cave-woman had smelt, but then she stopped herself and thought again.

In her few seconds contact she'd had with the cave-woman, apart from a little sweat she'd been surprised about the way the young woman hadn't smelt bad.

“Right,” Ian was now upright again and the blonde woman wasn't pointing her spear at the Doctor any more, “we better try and talk our way out of this because I don't fancy fighting shorty there again...at least not without a weapon of some kind.”

“Nonsense,” The Doctor had also climbed back to his feet with some assistance from Susan, “you don't need a weapon you just need to overawe them with 'magic'.”

“Magic?” everyone chorused as they turned to look at the Doctor, he'd obviously gone insane.

“Yes,” the Doctor appeared on the brink of losing his patience, “something like a simple cigarette lighter would be like magic to these people.”

“Sorry I don't smoke,” Ian replied dryly.

“Oh...” the Doctor started to search his pockets, “...never mind, I'm sure I've got some matches here somewhere...”

“Grandfather...!” Susan cried in alarm as she saw half a dozen hunters running towards them across the field, waving their spears as they came.

0=0=0=0

“What now!?” Ian demanded as the little group of time travellers were surrounded by the newly arrived spear wielding hunters.

“Grandfather!” Susan wailed as she cowered away from one of the hunters who'd pulled roughly at her clothes.

“Don't worry,” the Doctor called, “I expect they're just as curious about us as we are about them.”

“They look more angry than curious,” Barbara pointed out just as she noticed yet another woman wearing a fur bikini and carrying a spear; she was beginning to think that something wasn't quite right here but decided to keep her suspicions to herself for now.

“They're probably curious about how good we'll taste,” Ian suggested as he watched the hunter's spearpoints warily, “those spearheads might only be flint but they look jolly sharp,” he warned.

“My dear boy,” the Doctor replied condescendingly, “there's nothing to fear from such primitive folk,” he laughed, “we just have to overawe them with a little slight of hand and they'll do anything we want because they'll think we're gods or some such, hmm?”

“Doctor,” Barbara turned from the hunters to look at Doctor Foreman, “I really don't think we should make them think we're gods...”

“Oh there's nothing to it...” the Doctor said as he took a step towards the short, blonde warrior in her white fur bikini.

0=0=0=0

“I wonder what they're talking about?” Shine asked Elm as they stood next to each other watching the strangers.

“Sounds like they're arguing,” Elm replied.

“Y'two alright?” Dark, Shine's mate came to stand near her friends, she pointed at the time travellers, “where'd they come from?”

“Don't know,” Shine shrugged, “when I got here they'd already attacked Elm so I just jumped in.”

“And ya didn't kill any of them?” Dark asked in shock, “Ya must be getting soft,” the dark haired woman shook her head in sorrow, “I told ya having a kid would make y'all go momsie...”

“Well duh...!” Shine sniggered.

“Y'know what I mean,” Dark pushed her mate playfully.

“Hey!” Shine pushed Dark back but before the pushing could turn into a play fight the older stranger stepped forward and seemed about to address Shine; however, before he could say anything she used the butt of her spear to sweep his legs out from under him again.

The old shaman cried out in surprise as he hit the ground, the two females squealed in shock as they rushed forward to help the old man back to his feet. The younger male just looked on in anger but did nothing to start a fight.

“What do we do with them?” Lone Hunter asked as he walked over to join Shine, Dark and Elm.

“We could kill 'em,” Dark pointed out helpfully: her old tribe had no quarms about killing people.

“No,” Elm said, “they're strangers and they probably don't know our ways...”

“Civilised people don't just attack lone females for no reason, Elm,” Shine pointed out.

“Shorty's right,” Dark grinned, just before Shine pushed her again.

“You wait 'til I get you home,” Shine warned her mate.

“Promises, promises,” Dark smirked, “y'all talk.”

“GIRLS!” Lone Hunter cried, “Leave the rough-snuggling for later, now,” he gestured at the strangers, “do we kill them here or take them back to camp, either way its getting late...”

Looking up, Shine saw that it was indeed getting late, the sun was heading towards night and the night-sun was already in the sky although low down.

“I say we take them home,” Elm announced, as the Clan's Wise Woman her words carried as much weight as Lone Hunter's did, “I'd like to watch them a little before we do anything more permanent and maybe we should see what Night-Watcher thinks.”

“Okay, that's settled,” Shine said, she was the Mother of the Clan so what she said was law, “anyone got an argument?”

Dark and Lone-Hunter shook their heads.

0=0=0=0

Watching from the edge of the woods, Zaa groaned as he slapped his head with his hands in a mixture of anger and frustration. He'd never live to understand the new-men, if his own people had found the group of strangers on their territory they would have killed and eaten them. But not the new-men, no it looked as if the new-men were taking the strangers back to their camp. The thought did cross Zaa's mind that the new-men might kill the strangers once they'd got them back to their camp, that they were simply saving themselves the bother of carrying the dead bodies, but some how he didn't really believe this.

Moving carefully as he could to keep the strangers and the new-men in sight for a while longer, Zaa studied the strangers carefully. One of the group appeared to be a youngish female, it was difficult to tell with all the strange skins the strangers were wearing. His eyes narrowed as he watched and a new idea popped into his mind. He'd already decided to steal one of the new-man females and force her to show him how to make fire. But he knew that if he did that the new-men hunters would come after him and perhaps track him back to his band's cave. The new-men valued their females more than his own people did, Zaa couldn't conceive of tracking hunters who'd taken even his own mate. But the new-men hunters would chase him with fire and death in their eyes if he stole one of their females.

But...

But, if he took the stranger female no hunters would come after him. The young female wasn't of this new-man tribe, surely the hunters wouldn't bother to track her. Just then a troubling thought hit Zaa; what if the new-men killed the strangers before he had a chance to take the female? Well, Zaa sighed, he'd just have to go back to his original plan and hope that he could hide his tracks from the hunters who'd come after him as sure as the bright-disc rose in the morning.

0=0=0=0

Watching the natives with a wary eye, Ian sat down near the camp fire as he'd been directed to by the big male hunter. Now the natives were back in their village they seemed more relaxed and didn't appear to be getting ready to sacrifice himself or any of his party to their primitive gods.

“Ian?” Barbara sat down on the ground next to him.

“Are you alright?” Ian asked.

“I'm fine,” Barbara smiled reassuringly, “a little confused and shaken up, up otherwise no worse for wear.”

“What about the Doctor and Susan,” he nodded over to where Susan was fussing over her grandfather.

“Apart from having his dignity bruised,” Barbara grinned, “I think 'The Doctor' will be fine and Susan...” Barbara paused for a moment, “...well, I don't think there's going to be any lasting harm...but I don't want to talk about that...”

“What do you want to talk about?” Ian asked and smiled just a little, “Next term's school outing?”

“Now this would be a strange school outing,” Barbara laughed quietly; but, even though she'd only laughed very quietly several of the stone age natives glanced her way.

“Good hearing,” Ian commented, “just as well they don't understand us, so, what did you want to talk about?”

“This...” Barbara gestured to the stone age tribes people and their camp, “...everything.”

“And?” Ian prompted.

“Look,” Barbara took a deep breath, “several times they've been in a position to kill us or do us harm and they haven't and just look at those fur bikini's the women are wearing...”

“I am...” Ian's eyes had drifted of their own accord over to where the blonde in the white bikini sat next to her dark haired friend.

“Ian...” Barbara jabbed her fellow teacher in the ribs to make him pay attention to what she was about to say.

“What?” Ian's eyes snapped back to look at Barbara, “Sorry I got distracted there for a moment.”

“Yes you did,” Barbara replied darkly, “anyway, as I was saying those fur bikinis that all the women wear, they're far too well made to be a product of primitive arts and crafts. And another thing, have you noticed how young everyone is?”

“Now you mention it,” Ian's eyes darted around the camp site, “apart from the old fellow there, there doesn't appear to be anyone over about thirty and where did the Negro woman come from?”

“Who?” Barbara asked looking around until she saw the African woman sitting next to the older man along with three young boys, “Oh yes I didn't notice her but it just reinforces what I've been thinking.”

“And what have you been thinking?” Ian wanted to know.

“That this is all a put up job,” Barbara explained in hushed tones as if she was fearful that the tribe's people could actually understand her.

“I thought you believed in all the Doctor's time travel malarkey,” Ian grinned.

“Well, at first I must admit I was taken in but now I'm not so sure...”

“My god!” Ian gasped as the wolf walked into the circle of huts and went to sit over by the redhead, “Have you ever seen a creature like that before!”

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

5.

**The Village.**

“Oomph!” Elm gasped as Moon-wolf sat down next to her and butted her with his huge head, “I know you're feeling totally guilty about not being there to protect me and the kids, but there's no need to get, like over protective much.”

Moon-wolf gazed up at his mate with his big amber eyes and whined like a cub.

“Okay,” Elm sighed as she ruffled the fur at the back of Moon-wolf's neck, “you're forgiven.”

Elm had long ago accepted that sometimes her mate would not be there when he was needed. It was part of his wolf nature to go off by himself, but he always came back to her, Cub and Giggle.

“What's up with Moon-wolf?” Shine called from the skins that she and Dark shared.

“Feeling guilty is'all,” Elm hugged her mate's giant head before turning her attention back to the tribe's mother. “So what do we do with these?”

“We totally can't just kill them,” Shine pointed out, “but I'd like to know where they come from and what they want.”

“If they want our hunting grounds,” Lone-Hunter called from the other side of the fire, “we might have to kill them or at least not let them go.”

“Hmm,” Shine nodded her head slowly, “Lone-Hunter might have a point...” she studied the strangers for a moment or two, “...I mean the girl and the young hunter would make good additions to the clan but the older female and the shaman, I'm not so sure.”

“We need to talk to them,” Dark said after listening to her mate.

“That's like, totally none violent of you,” Shine grinned at her mate over her shoulder.

“Hey!” Dark complained, “It's not all about the spear an' knife with me y'know?”

“I know honey,” Shine shifted to where she could wrap her arms around Dark's neck and kiss her lips, “but normally you like totally just stab things.”

“I know,” Dark admitted as she moved her hand so it rested on one of Shine's breasts, “but there's something about this bunch.”

“You feel it too?” Elm asked.

“Uh-huh,” Dark wasn't really listening as Shine and herself got distracted by some pretty serious kissing.

“Hey! Guys!” Elm cried as the two women lay down on their skins and started to snuggle; Elm rolled her eyes and shook her head; the decision about what to do with the strangers would have to wait until Shine and Dark had finished snuggling.

0=0=0=0

“Look at that!” Ian cried out when he saw what the two young women were doing, “That's disgusting and in public too!”

“What?” Barbara turned to see what had got Ian so agitated.

“Don't look Barbara!” Ian tried to cover Barbara's eyes with his hand but she pushed him away.

“Different cultures, Ian,” she pointed out as she watched the two young women rub their bodies against each other as they moaned with ill concealed pleasure.

“I don't care, its still disgusting going on like that in public,” Ian replied full of righteous indignation.

“It doesn't appear to be bothering anyone else,” Barbara pointed out.

In fact while a couple of women were placing a small deer on a spit above the fire, the other men women and children of the tribe seemed totally unconcerned by what was happening.

“What's going on, hmmm?” asked the Doctor as he and Susan came to join Ian and Barbara.

“Nothing much,” Ian studiously didn't look in the direction of the two young women, “some of the women seem to be getting ready to cook dinner while everyone else is 'playing'.”

Looking around, the Doctor saw that apart from the two young women having sex and the red haired woman with her wolf, everyone else was either getting ready to cook a meal or were playing with the tribe's children and talking amongst themselves.

“So, what do you make of our new found friends, hmm?” the Doctor asked eagerly.

“I think this is all a put up job,” Barbara explained before anyone else had a chance to say anything.

“Oh, dear, dear me,” the Doctor shook his head sadly, “and I'd had such great hopes for you Miss Wright. I thought that you at least were more open minded than your colleague here,” he gestured to Ian who'd managed to place himself between Susan and the tribe's women so she wouldn't be able to see what they were doing.

“I'm sorry but things all seem a little too neat,” Barbara explained, “I'm a history teacher and this doesn't look like any history I know.”

“Have you considered the option that the history you know might be wrong?” asked the Doctor.

0=0=0=0

“Oh look!” Shine complained as she sat up and adjusted her boob-sling, “I'm all wet!” she frowned at Dark, “If Bright cries because she's hungry you'll have no one to blame but yourself!”

“Whatever,” Dark smirked as she pulled her own clothing back into place, she pointed at Shine's breasts, “that's why the Mother gave ya two boobs...”

“When you two have quite finished!” Elm said slightly impatiently.

Turning Dark and Shine saw the look on the Wise Woman's face and decided not to try her patience any longer.

“Sorry,” they chorused like a couple of naughty little girls.

“And so you should be,” Elm harrumphed, “while you were enjoying yourselves and neglecting your clan duties I've been doing some thinking about our guests.”

“So what are we gonna do?” Dark asked, “Shall we kill them?”

“Mood swings, much?” Shine sniggered, “One moment you wanna to keep them the next you wanna kill them, anyone would think you had a baby inside you!” Shine looked at her mate, “You haven't, have you?”

“NO!” Dark snapped back loudly.

“No need to shout,” Shine pointed out before turning to face Elm before she got really angry and turned them into ugly hogs, “So, what have you been thinking?”

“You know I can talk to animals, right?”

“Uh-huh,” Shine and Dark nodded their heads in unison.

“Maybe I can use the same magic so I can talk to them,” Elm pointed to where the strangers sat in a little clump.

“That's totally clever!” Shine exclaimed as she hugged her friend.

“Yeah,” Elm continued after she'd fought off Shine's embrace, “but I probably can't do it by myself so I sent Moon-wolf to bring Moon over to help me.”

“Moon?” Shine frowned, she didn't know the name.

“Mate of Long-Spear,” Dark announced as she picked Giggle up out of her carrying basket and placed the child in her lap.

“She's the Wise Woman of the Fast-River Clan,” Elm added.

“Oh!” Shine cried out as realisation dawned, “Nice woman with the mouse coloured hair and the two children...”

Shine frowned for a moment as she remembered that Moon was one of the women who'd lost a child coming over the mountains in the spring. Her frown got deeper as she told herself that the loss of one of Moon's babies was a good reason to stay on this side of the mountains unless it got too cold again.

0=0=0=0

The deer had been cooked and one of the tribe's women (no more than a girl really, Barbara thought) had given them a portion to share amongst themselves along with a wooden bowl of cooked roots and greens.

“They won't kill us now,” the Doctor observed as he chewed on a boiled root.

“Why not?” Ian wanted to know as he licked animal fat off his fingers.

“Its almost universal,” Susan spoke for the first time in ages, “in most primitive cultures once you've shared the tribe's food they're honour bound not to kill you.”

“And if they haven't developed that code of conduct yet?” Ian asked.

“Then we'll all be murdered in our beds,” the Doctor pointed out, “I think Mr Chesterton might have a point, I think it wise that we keep our eyes open for trouble...oh! I say!”

Looking up the time travellers found two women standing between them and the fire. While they'd been eating it had grown dark and the two women were silhouetted by the blaze. One Ian could see was the slim red head, the other was a heavier woman he'd not seen before. Whoever these women were they were obviously people of importance in the tribe. Both women wore primitive charms around their necks and arms. Their bodies had been daubed with strange symbols and they both held carved sticks in their left hands which they started to shake as they began to chant together. After a moment or two chanting they stopped and exchanged a few words in their own language. With a cry they pointed to Barbara as a couple of hunters stepped out of the darkness and pulled the history teacher roughly to her feet.

“Barbara!” Ian cried out as he got to his feet ready to defend his friend from the savages.

Before he could do anything the dark haired huntress appeared in front of him and knocked him back onto his rear with contemptuous ease. As Ian tried to regain his feet he looked up to find himself staring up at the two huntress' who held spears ready to stop him interfering in whatever the other tribe's women had planned for Barbara.

0=0=0=0

“Barbara!” Ian cried out in surprise and relief, “what did they do to you? I tried to follow but those two women with spears stopped me...”

“They stole my clothes,” Barbara sat down on the animal skin next to Ian, she was glad to be back around the camp fire again.

The previous evening Barbara had been dragged away by two of the tribe's women, when Ian had tried to intervene he'd been stopped by the blonde and her dark haired friend, both of whom had been wielding very dangerous looking spears. No doubt, Ian told himself, if he'd tried to disarm them and follow Barbara the male hunters would have attacked him. In his guilt at not being able to help Barbara, he'd stayed up late into the night only falling asleep long after midnight.

“Tell me what happened?” Ian asked as he found a stone container which held some fresh water and handed it to Barbara, she drank thirstily for a moment or two before answering.

“It was all very strange...” Barbara began.

“They didn't...you know...hurt you?” Ian asked hesitantly.

“No...” Barbara shook her head, “...it was like some sort of religious ceremony or maybe it was tribal magic or something.”

“What's that, hmm?” suddenly the Doctor inserted himself into the discussion, “Religion? Magic? One and the same, ha!” he laughed before looking at Barbara, “Come, come, tell us what happened.”

“As I was about to explain,” Barbara replied pointedly as she gave the Doctor a sharp look, “They took me off into the meadow there,” she pointed to a spot behind the little huts, “and those two...I suppose you'd call them medicine or wise women cut off my clothes.” Barbara glanced to one side to see the group had been joined by Susan who sat down next to her grandfather, “I thought they were going to sacrifice me but they just stood there and chanted over me...”

“Do you remember what they said?” the Doctor wanted to know.

“No!” Barbara snapped at the old man, “Not only were they speaking in their own language but I was in fear of my life, so I wasn't really paying attention.”

“Pity,” the Doctor shook his head sadly, “if you could've remembered what they said it might've proved very useful, next time pay more attention, hmm?”

“But they didn't hurt you?” Ian asked slowly.

“No, I said,” Barbara replied, “they cut off my clothes and then started to chant. After a while they stopped and gave me this,” Barbara picked at the animal hide dress she was wearing, “then I must have fallen asleep. I woke up a few minutes ago and came looking for you.”

“That's a nice necklace,” Susan said as she reached out to examine the necklace made of bone beads and animal teeth that hung around Barbara's neck.

“What!?” Barbara's hand went to her neck and took hold of the necklace, “One of those wise women must have put it on me last night.”

“Interesting,” mused the Doctor, “best if you leave it on you don't know how these people might react if you took it off...”

“But what if it means I'm marked for sacrifice or I've been married off to one of the men?”

“Oh I shouldn't worry,” the Doctor smiled totally unconcerned, “I expect its a gift or payment for your clothes...now Susan,” he turned to look at his granddaughter, “lets get on with studying these people, they're most interesting you know...”

Standing up, the Doctor walked off with Susan following behind him as he lectured her about stone age people and how this tribe didn't seem to fit in with any of the theories he'd ever heard.

“So, they didn't hurt you?” Ian asked again.

“You keep asking me that and there's no need to sound so disappointed,” Barbara replied a little more sharply than she'd intended to.

“Sorry,” Ian forced a smile, “I didn't mean to sound...you know, but don't you see?”

“See what?”

“Well, this all fits in with your theory that this is some sort of hoax, a put-up-job I think you called it.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” Barbara replied.

“Look they had the perfect chance to do something terrible to you...”

“Oh, thank-you for being so reassuring!” Barbara replied off handedly.

“But don't you see, they didn't,” Ian pointed out, “Several times they've had the chance to seriously injure us or even kill us, yet they haven't. The worse any of us have got are scuffs and bruises, to be honest I've had worse from playing a game of rugby. It looks to me as if they don't want to injure any of us.”

“But why, if this is some sort of hoax, would anyone want to go through with it?” Barbara wanted to know.

“Oh,” Ian sighed heavily, “maybe it's some sort of government project,” he gestured to the cave people as they crawled from their huts to greet the day, before adding with a grin, “maybe they're all civil servants!?”

Noticing the tribe's people all heading in one direction, Barbara stood up to try and see where they were going.

“Looks like they're heading for the river,” Barbara told to Ian.

“And no doubt the Doctor will be there,” Ian climbed slowly and stiffly to his feet, “we better follow along and make sure he doesn't fall in or anything.”

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

6.

**The Village, dawn.**

Crawling out of her hut, Shine bounced to her feet, stretched, coughed and farted before casting her eyes around looking for danger. Her world was a dangerous place, not so much when there were lots of people around but she liked to keep an eye on things. Turning she stood and watched as Dark crept silently from the hut with a still sleepy Bright in her arms.

“Come on sleepy head,” Shine said softly as she took her child from Dark's arms and into her own, “time to wake up!”

The child opened a sleepy eye and smiled up at her mother. Now all three of them were awake, Shine led the way down to the river to join the rest of the tribe. Stripping off her fur bikini, and Bright's sleeping skins she climbed down into the river and sat down in the water followed closely by Dark.

“Looks like our friends don't believe in keeping clean,” Dark nodded towards where the strangers stood on the riverbank.

“Maybe its not their way,” Shine observed, she held Bright's head above the water as the child laughed and splashed about, “Might explain why they all smell funny...” Shine paused as an evil thought came to her mind, “...hey, why don't you and Lone-Hunter push them in?”

“Why don't you?” Dark asked.

“I'm looking after, Bright,” Shine replied.

“Okay,” Dark shrugged as she stood up and headed for the river bank, “I'll see what I can do...”

Sitting in the river as she taught Bright to swim, Shine watched with half an eye as Dark climbed up the riverbank and headed down stream to where Lone-Hunter and Dusk played in the water with there own child Pebbles. For a moment Shine thought what a silly name 'Pebbles' was for a child, not a sensible name like Bright she thought. Pulling her thoughts and attention back to her own child, Shine almost missed the cries of alarm and the big splashes in the water as Dark and Lone-Hunter threw the strangers into the river; she almost missed it because just at that moment Bright said...

“Ma-ma-ma...” and giggled at the look of surprise on her mother's face, the child decided she'd obviously done something to please her mother so she said it again, “...ma-ma-ma!”

0=0=0=0

Having built himself a nest in one of the trees that over looked the new-man camp, Zaa had woken up and had eaten some grubs and berries before going back to watching the camp. Today would have to be _the_ day. Today he'd have to steal the young female who wasn't part of the new-man band. If he didn't bring fire back to his own people before the day was done he might as well not go home. If he did his band would kill and eat him, which was probably better than what life had in store for him if he didn't go back. Life outside the band would be unbelievably dangerous, without the protection of the band he'd soon be killed and eaten by some creature or another band.

Moving cautiously around the camp, Zaa got himself into a better position to watch the new-men as they played in the water. They did this every morning unless it was very cold and Zaa couldn't think why, it was nothing that he or his people would do, just watching the foolish new-men made Zaa shiver. Settling down in the shade of a bush, he prepared himself to spend the day watching the tribe and waiting for his chance to snatch the female.

0=0=0=0

“We threw the lot of them in,” Dark explained, “except for the old man, I was frightened that the shock might kill him!”

“Good,” Shine nodded firmly as she let Bright swim the short distance between herself and Dark. “Perhaps they won't smell so strange now...we better get them some dry cloths.”

“Yeah...” Dark hesitated for a moment, although she was pleased that Bright had said her first words and she loved the little girl as if she'd given birth to her herself, but there was something empty in her heart every time she looked at the child. It was almost as if she wished Bright actually _was_ hers.

“Dark...” Shine said slowly, “...I was thinking, now Bright's said her first words, it means I'll stop feeding her soon and when I do...” Shine took a deep breath, “...do you mind if I get one of the hunters to put another baby in me?”

“Erm...” Dark wasn't sure what to say so she asked a question of her own instead, “...what's it like snuggling with a hunter...ya know when he puts his man-thing in ya, does it hurt?”

The customs of Dark's birth tribe were very different to those of Shine's and she'd never 'snuggled' with a hunter...ever!

“No it doesn't hurt and its not so bad...” Shine saw the pensive look on Dark's face and added, “...but its not as good as snuggling with you, I...”

“I want to have a baby put inside me!” Dark blurted out before Shine could finish what she was saying.

“You sure?” Shine asked.

“Uh-huh,” Dark nodded a look of panic in her eyes.

“Okay,” Shine shrugged before guiding Bright into a shallow spot where she wouldn't drown, “like, we could take it in turns to have babies inside us.”

“Oh I think I only want one,” Dark pointed out.

“Whatever,” Shine moved in on Dark and started to kiss her as she ran her hands over her mate's smooth wet body.

0=0=0=0

“They're at it again,” Ian whispered as he and Barbara stood on the river bank trying to get the water out of their clothes.

“Who? What?” Barbara asked as she tried to wring out her cave-woman dress without taking it off, it hadn't come with underwear.

“Those two damned women,” Ian hissed, “they're doing it again!”

Looking to where Ian was gesturing, Barbara saw that the two warrior woman were in fact in a passionate embrace while the blonde woman's child played happily in the shallows near her mother. For a moment Barbara felt jealous of the two women, they seemed so happy together. In her life she'd had to make a choice between her career and marriage. The thing was she'd never found a man she loved or even liked enough to give up teaching for. In fact, now she thought about it, she'd never felt strongly attracted to any man. Yes, she had male friends, but that was all they were, friends; her friendships never seemed to turn into romance. In fact the last time she'd ever really felt anything more than friendship for another person, was when she'd been at teacher training collage. She'd had a pretty bad schoolgirl 'pash' for one of her female classmates. But that was all it was, a silly infatuation. Her thoughts were interrupted by Ian.

“Its disgusting!” Ian muttered as he watched the couple move against each other in the water.

“If its so 'disgusting',” Barbara remarked as a small smile crossed her lips, “why are you watching them so intently?”

“I...!” Ian spluttered a little before giving up trying to come up with a good answer.

“And look,” Barbara gestured around to the rest of the clan, “no one else seems worried or angry, I wouldn't let it bother you...and another thing, those two women seem pretty important to the tribe so I'd be careful how you look at them. Primitive people believe in things like the 'evil eye' and they might take it into there heads to poke yours out!”

0=0=0=0

“Hi Elm!” Shine called as she saw her childhood friend walk over to join her and Dark; Elm carried Giggle on her hip while Cub scampered about on all fours around her legs, “How'd the spell go last night?”

“Thought you'd never ask,” Elm yawned, “Moon and I were up almost all night chanting over that woman and I still don't know if the spell took.”

“Oh well,” Shine grinned as she got out of the water, “so you don't think we'll be talking any time soon?”

“No,” Elm shook her head sadly, “Moon thinks it might take a day or two to work into the woman's head, people are more complicated than animals so the spell might take longer to work and what are you looking so pleased about?”

“Bright said, 'Ma-ma-ma' and Dark wants to have a baby...!”

“Just the one,” Dark explained as she climbed out of the river to stand next to her mate.

“Cool!” Elm replied excitedly, “You've gotta let me find you the right hunter to put the baby inside you.”

“Let you choose?” Dark didn't sound so sure.

“Well duh!” Elm laughed, “What experience of men do you have?”

“Not much,” Dark admitted with a shrug.

“Well then you'll let me chose for you...”

“You want me to put the choice of who puts a baby in me into the hands of a woman who mated with a man-wolf?” Dark asked incredulously.

“Dark's got a point, Elm,” Shine admitted as she picked up Bright.

“Okay,” Elm sighed heavily, “how about I get Chase to help me?”

“Chase?” Dark thought for a moment, Chase was One-Eye's beautiful mate, she'd recently taken on the roll of the clan's match-maker, “Yeah, okay.”

“Great!” Elm grinned, “This is totally gonna be so much fun!”

0=0=0=0

“Look, I've been thinking,” Ian announced as the four time travellers followed the tribe's people back to their camp.

“Thinking?” smirked the Doctor, “I highly doubt that, young man!”

“As I say,” Ian chose to ignore the Doctor's remark, “I've been thinking and I think its time we made our way back to the Tardis.”

“What?” cried the Doctor, “And leave these interesting people unstudied, I...I mean I've seen several things that these people have that they shouldn't and you're proposing that we leave without investigating?”

“Look,” Ian stopped and stared belligerently at the Doctor, “this is obviously some sort of hoax and the sooner we get back to civilisation the better!”

“So,” the Doctor said with infuriating smugness, “if this is a hoax why do you want to go back to the Tardis, hmm? By your way of thinking it I must be part of the same hoax!”

“I'm thinking that by going back to your Tardis we'll show whoever's watching that we've realised that none of this is real and whoever is running this...this...experiment will see that its pointless to continue with it.”

“Oh I see now,” the Doctor sniffed and drew himself up to his full height, he looked down his nose at Ian, “you and Miss Wright can do as you please, but Susan and myself are going to continue with our observations.”

“Is that what you want to do, Susan?” Barbara asked the teenager.

“Of course,” Susan looked at the history teacher as if staying was the most natural thing to do, “Like grandfather says, you must do as you think best, but I'm staying here, I'm sure we'll be perfectly safe.”

Just as Susan had finished speaking a pretty young woman with a baby on her back, walked over to the little huddle of time travellers and tossed, Ian and Susan some skins. After saying something that sounded apologetic to the Doctor, she walked off and went to sit in front of a hut where she busied herself pressing clay into a shallow basket.

“There, my boy!” the Doctor whispered as he pointed to where the young woman worked, “She's making an earthenware bowl if I'm not very much mistaken that's something that people shouldn't be doing for several thousand more years and you want to walk away from that!?” the Doctor shook his head slowly, “Oh no, definitely not.”

0=0=0=0

“Okay people!” Shine called out from the centre of the camp.

It was the middle of the morning and a runner had just come with a message from the main camp, a tribal meeting had been called to settle a dispute and Shine was needed to add her voice to that of the other Clan mothers.

“Listen up,” Shine said as everyone gathered around her, even the strangers who were now wearing proper clothes (at least everyone except the old man was) so didn't smell so funny. “Listen up, I've gotta go to the Tribal Council fire some dispute about who gets to mate with who!”

“To 'whom',” Chase corrected but everyone ignored her.

But, there were mutterings of discontent from the clan, who got to mate with who (or whom) wasn't something to call a Tribal Council for.

“So I'll need Elm to Speak to the Wise Women, Lone-Hunter to speak to the Hunters and One-Eye you better come because one of the people in the argument is a tool maker.”

“Who?” One-Eye asked as he stepped forward.

“Some old guy called, Clever-Fingers.”

“Oh him,” One-Eye said with obvious dislike.

“I'm guessing he's not one of your favourite people,” Shine raised an eyebrow.

“He's got ideas totally bigger than his head and what's more he doesn't make very good tools,” One-Eye explained.

“Bigger than his head, huh?” Shine asked uncertainly.

“Watch out for him, Shine,” One-Eye said in a warning tone, “I've heard talk from the other tool makers that he wants to take over the tribe.”

“Yeah, right,” Shine laughed, “like that's ever gonna happen!”

“That's what I've heard,” One-Eye warned with a shrug.

“I'll bear it in mind,” Shine nodded, “okay, while I'm away Dark is in charge...”

“Don't you want me to come too?” Night-Watcher asked.

“Erm...” Shine didn't want to upset her old teacher, but she could manage without him, “...well...no...I...”

“Oh thank the Mother for that,” Night-Watcher sighed with relief, “I can get on with my skin paintings without interruption!”

“Good,” Shine sighed with relief having not upset anyone, “we'll be back as soon as we can...”

0=0=0=0

Going behind a tree, Susan stripped off her wet clothes and changed into the fur bikini that the stone-age woman with the baby had given her. Hanging her damp clothes over a bush so they'd dry in the sun, she slipped the hide bikini on and tied up the laces that held it together. Much to her surprise it didn't smell bad and the stitching and laces that held the three or four pieces of hide and fur that made up the bikini together were very well done.

The bikini had been made out of several pieces of what she guessed was deer hide and was worn with the hair side out. There were no shoes or sandals, although she'd see that most of the hunters wore moccasin-like shoes but the women appeared to prefer to go bare foot. The two female hunters wore moccasins like the men.

Now properly dressed, Susan came out from behind her tree, as she headed back towards the middle of the camp she got the feeling that someone was watching her. Coming to a halt she turned back the way she'd just come and scanned the trees and bushes for any sign of anyone watching her. Seeing nothing she shrugged and continued on her way back to camp.

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

7.

Whining in a mixture of anger and frustration, Zaa slapped himself so hard on the head that he nearly knocked himself out of his tree. He was angry with himself for not moving fast enough to capture the new-man female when she'd gone behind a bush to swap one set of skins for another; once again why she should do this Zaa had no idea. His frustration came from the knowledge that he'd missed an opportunity and now if he wanted the female he'd have to track and stalk her all over again and run the risk of being caught by the new-men hunters. 

But, on the plus side he had seen the female naked, he couldn't understand why the new-men covered themselves in skins, perhaps it was to make themselves look more like the animals they hunted, anyway it wasn't something his own people would do. Whatever the reason, he'd seen the new-man female without her skins and he'd become aroused at the sight of her pale, almost hairless body. Perhaps when he caught her he'd mate with her before he forced her to show him how to make new fire and before he killed and ate her.

0=0=0=0

Now dressed in her new fur bikini, Susan re-entered the camp to find the cave people discussing something that they obviously thought was important.

“What's going on?” Susan asked her grandfather as she walked over to the little group of time travellers.

“Hmmm?” What's that?” Doctor Foreman looked away from the villagers to glance at his granddaughter, he smiled at her, “Oh, it seems our friends are trying to decide on something...”

“Yes, and its that short, blonde woman who seems to be telling everyone what to do,” Ian explained.

“And what's wrong with that?” Barbara wanted to know.

“I never said there was anything wrong,” Ian replied defensively, “I was just pointing something out.”

“In a lot of pre-Christian societies women often had a louder voice in the decision making process than in later times,” Foreman explained.

“And quite right too,” Barbara said as she crossed her arms belligerently under her breasts.

0=0=0=0

“Okay people lets go,” Shine led Elm, Lone-Hunter and One-Eye out of the camp and towards where the tribal meeting fire was situated.

“Looks like our guests have decided to come along too,” Lone-Hunter attracted Shine's attention to where the strangers were following them, “do you want me to chase them off?”

“Nah,” Shine shook her head, “let them follow if they like, maybe their people don't have tribal councils...but if they start any trouble you can hit them.”

“Can I hit them too?” One-Eye asked.

“You're not a hunter,” Lone-Hunter pointed out.

“I'm not asking to hunt them,” One-Eye replied with a shrug, “I just want to hit them if necessary is all.”

“Boys!” Shine said in that tone mothers often used with unruly children, “Lone-Hunter you let One-Eye join in and One-Eye don't be such a pain, okay?”

It didn't take the representatives of the Valley Clan long to reach the council fire and when they did they saw a crowd of people almost big enough to make a clan all by itself standing around an unlit fire. Off to one side were all the Mothers, near them were all the Wise-Women. Standing between the Mothers, Wise-Women and another group of men were the Hunters. Finally keeping very much to one side and away from any group were the Tool-Makers. After signalling to her friends that they should go and join their groups, Shine walked over to where the Mothers had congregated.

“Hi, ladies,” Shine said brightly to the group, “what's goin' on?”

0=0=0=0

“Hi, Moon,” Elm said as she joined her friend.

“H-hi, Elm,” Moon replied as she smiled a greeting to her sister wise-woman.

“What's goin' on?” Elm asked, “I heard there was an argument over who got to mate with who...or is that whom?”

“Y-yeah that's right...whom?” Moon shrugged before starting to explain, “See there...” Moon pointed over to where an older looking tool maker stood surrounded by his supporters, “...that's Clever-Fingers, he wants to mate with that girl...” Moon gestured towards a pretty girl who stood by herself near the fire, “...Flower. But she wants to mate with Blue-Eyes,” Moon pointed to a young hunter standing near the other hunters.

“She doesn't look old enough to mate with anyone, even with those boobs,” Elm pointed out, the girl's breasts were larger than her own and it was easy to she how any hunter or tool maker would want to mate with her, “has she even been given her Woman's name yet?”

“Next summer,” Moon said; in the tribe people had three names during their life, a baby name, a child name and finally an adult name.

“Then what's all the fuss about?” Elm wanted to know, “If she still has her child name no one should mate with her.”

“Clever-Fingers might not be a very good tool maker, but he has a lot of friends who think like him,” Moon explained, “hold on Berry's going to say something.”

Berry, the Mother of the tribe stepped forward and called everyone to stop talking, next she turned to Clever-Fingers and told him to explain why he should be allowed to mate with Flower.

“As you all know,” Clever-Fingers began, “my old mate, Crystal fell off the path and died last spring...”

“Very sad,” Shine stepped out of the crowd of Mothers to speak, “and wasn't there something about her being pushed? I mean no one actually saw her being pushed down the mountain, but...”

“THAT'S A LIE!” Clever-Fingers yelled angrily, but soon regained his composure and continued with his story, “Crystal only gave me girl-children, I need a son to follow in my footsteps. I believe Flower could give me those sons, she is young and strong and...”

“An' she's got big boobs!” Elm called from the crowd of the Wise-Women much to everyone's amusement.

“And she wants to mate with a hunter,” Sharp-Axe an experienced hunter called out, “not some old, broken down, tool maker who can hardly get his manhood to work!” the Hunters called out their support of Blue-Eye's claim to mate with Flower, Sharp-Axe continued, “Blue-Eyes may be young but he's already a strong hunter let him mate with Flower when she takes her woman's name.”

There was a roar of approval from the hunters as Sharp-Axe finished speaking.

“ENOUGH!” Clever-Fingers yelled again, bringing the tribe back to silence, “What is wrong with you?” he asked the hunters and tool makers, “Why do we allow the women of the tribe to make all the important decisions...?”

“Because they have the babies,” called an anonymous voice that sounded a lot like One-Eye's.

“SHUT UP!” Clever-Fingers shouted belligerently, “I hear you One-Eye, who is under the thumb of that mate of yours...”

“I'm not under anyone's thumb!” One-Eye stepped forward, “And if you like I'll show you just how much I'm not under my mate's thumb.”

“No fighting at council,” Berry the Mother of the tribe called.

“Are we men or are we boys?” Clever-Fingers asked, “We let a gaggle of women decide what's best for the tribe when it is the men who should decide...we even let them carry weapons!”

There were some muttering of agreement from the hunters as Clever-Fingers made his point, not all the hunters thought it right that women should carry weapons or even hunt, although only a very few women hunted in these modern times.

“What-cha-goin' to do?” once again Shine stepped forward to speak, “I'd like to see you try and take away my spear.”

Clever-Fingers didn't answer Shine's challenge at first, he stood a moment to think about his answer.

“It is well known that Shine and her mate Dark are night-monsters in disguise!” Clever-Fingers pointed accusingly at Shine, “And if the Hunters had any courage they'd drive them from the tribe.”

There was a low, angry muttering from most of the tribe, not only was Clever-Fingers casting doubt on the bravery of the hunters, but, a lot of people were proud that the tribe had two One-girls.

“H-he's n-not w-winning many friends,” Moon said quietly into Elm's ear.

“I'm not so sure,” Elm glanced around at the hunters and Tool-Makers to see at least half of them thinking very hard about what Clever-Fingers had just said.

“I demand that from this point onwards, women are not to carry weapons, mate with each other and that men should make all the important decisions...and I should get to mate with Flower!”

“I CHALLENGE CLEVER-FINGERS,” Blue-Eyes who'd remained silent up to this point stepped forward to make his challenge; the tribal council went silent and turned to look at the increasingly nervous young hunter, “I challenge Clever-Fingers for the right to mate with Flower...”

“You can't challenge a tool maker to combat,” Long-Spear, Moon's mate, pointed out.

“But a challenge might show us which way the Great Mother wants us to go,” Lone-Hunter said craftily before stepping out in front of the Hunters and calling for quiet. “Blue-Eyes has challenged Clever-Fingers for the right to mate with Flower,” he clarified, “But a Tool-Maker can't be challenged to combat by a hunter, so what are we to do?” the question was obviously rhetorical because Lone-Hunter didn't give anyone the chance to suggest anything else, “I say let the Spears decide!”

For a moment there was silence which was only broken when the hunters all cheered Lone-Hunter's idea.

0=0=0=0

“I wish I knew what they were talking about,” Doctor Foreman said to no one in particular.

“I think...” Barbara hesitated for a moment, “...I think I understand a little of what's happening here...” she gave a potted history of what the tribe's people had been arguing about, “now they're talking about something called the Spear Challenge.”

“How do you know all this?” Ian asked.

“I don't know,” Barbara shrugged, “it's like I can understand them enough to know what they're talking about.”

“Maybe its magic,” Susan laughed.

0=0=0=0

Following the tribe's people and her friends to the edge of the village, Susan found herself at the front of the crowd and likely to have a grandstand view of whatever this Spear Challenge was. The hunters moved around clearing an area of meadow clear of any children that might be playing there while the adults had been talking. Next more hunters formed a loose line to keep the people back from where the challenge would take place.

Lastly, Susan watched as the two contestants were lead out onto the cleared area, the youth was escorted by the big, handsome hunter from the clan she and her friends were staying with. The older man was accompanied by a man from the same group the 'contestant' had been standing with. It only dawned on Susan that this might be something more than some kind of 'sporting even', when another hunter joined the group and handed the older man three slim spears and another piece of wood about two feet long.

0=0=0=0

“As the challenged Clever-Fingers has the right to throw the first three spears,” Lone-Hunter explained before turning to look at Cleaver-Fingers, “do you wish to claim this right?”

“Of course,” Cleaver-Finger replied nastily as he examined the throwing spears and the throwing stick that went with them, “the sooner I kill this annoying puppy the sooner I can have Flower to myself!”

“Why you...!” Blue-Eyes made a lunge at Clever-Fingers but was held back by Lone-Hunter.

“Be still boy!” Lone-Hunter snapped, “You'll get your chance...” he turned to Clever_Fingers, “...and you watch your tongue or this might not be the only challenge issued today.” This warning had the desired effect on Clever-Fingers and Lone-Hunter led Blue-Eyes to the far end of the meadow, “Remember,” Lone-Hunter explained quietly, “you can only start to dodge after Clever-Fingers has thrown his first spear...”

Blue-Eyes nodded his understanding, he was young, light on his feet and his eyes were sharp. He should easily avoid the spears thrown by Clever-Fingers, so, why was his heart beating so hard and loud that he was frightened that Lone-Hunter might hear it and think he was afraid?

“Don't take your eyes off the spears as they fly towards you,” Lone Hunter advised, he'd been challenged once, his challenger was now with the Great-Mother because he'd not kept his eyes on the flying spears, “when you see the old fool caste his spear change the direction that you're dodging in...with just a little luck it'll be your turn to throw the spears and kill that stupid old fool!”

0=0=0=0

“Don't go past me when you throw your spears,” Long-Spear reminded Clever-Fingers.

“Why not?” Clever-Fingers wanted to know as he checked the flights on the throwing spears he'd been given.

“Why?” Long-Spear smirked, “Because then I can use my spear on you!” he shook his spear warningly, “I don't think it right that old men like you should mate with young girls like Flower, it would be a pleasure to stick you with my spear and watch you bleed.”

“You can't say that!” Clever-Fingers snapped, “That's showing favouritism! You're supposed to be even handed.”

“I am,” Long-Spear smiled, “I'm just warning you to keep to the rules of the challenge.”

“The council will hear of this,” Clever-Fingers grumbled.

“Your word against mine,” Long-Spear shrugged, “and remember my mate is a powerful Wise Woman. You wouldn't want to wake up one morning being eaten by a lion, would you?”

0=0=0=0

“It's time,” Lone-Hunter announced after seeing Long-Spear signal that Clever-Fingers was ready to throw the first spear, “Look its just about long spear throw and Clever-Fingers is an old tool maker not a hunter you should be fine as long as you keep your eyes open...good luck, Blue Eyes.”

“Thanks,” Blue-Eyes replied nervously, before adding, “if he gets lucky and kills me, could you kill him for me?”

“Sorry can't do that,” Lone-Hunter laughed, “but, I see no reason why he can't have a fatal accident!”

0=0=0=0

Elm looked from Long-Spear to his actual spear and frowned, she turned to Moon who was standing next to her.

“Why is your mate called 'Long-Spear'?” Elm asked in a puzzled whisper, “I mean his spear isn't any longer than any of the other hunter's spears.”

Moon burst into a fit of giggles before she could answer, “That's not the 'spear' he was named for...”

“What?” Elm frowned again, before the bone dropped, “OH!” her hand covered her mouth to stop her own giggles from escaping, “Oh yeah, totally I get what you mean...erm just how long is his, y'know, spear?”

“T-tell y-you later,” Moon grinned as she pointed towards the meadow, “I think it's about to begin.”

0=0=0=0

Frowning, Susan watched fascinated as the hunters moved away from the challenger and the challenged, she still hadn't truly got it into her mind yet that this contest could end with one or other of the cavemen lying dead on the grass. She watched as the older man fitted one of the long slim spears into what her grandfather had told her was a throwing stick. Raising the stick and spear the older man took a short run up before launching his spear at the youth.

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

8.

“Don't watch Susan!” Ian cried as he tried to turn Susan away from the scene of the challenge.

“Mr Chesterton!” Susan cried out in alarm as she struggled to see what was going while at the same time trying to prevent the top of her fur bikini from coming undone, “Let me see!”

“Yes _Mr Chesterton_ ,” Barbara smirked, “let her see!”

“But...” Ian froze in mid-struggle, “...but someone might get killed...”

“Unlikely,” sniffed Doctor Foreman, “now unhand my granddaughter so she can learn something.”

“What!?” Ian cried with a certain amount of incredulity, “You mean you think its alright for your granddaughter to see someone die on the end of a spear?”

“As I say, highly unlikely,” Doctor Foreman was watching the contest quite closely; the youth had already dodged one spear.

“How do you know?” Ian sounded like he wanted to throw spears at Doctor Foreman.

“Use your mind,” Foreman snapped, “if its not too covered with cobwebs from lack of use.”

“Why you...” Ian muttered angrily as he started to raise a fist to punch the old man on the nose.

“Ian!” Barbara cried warningly.

“See!” Foreman pointed as the youth dodged the second spear thrown at him, “You see, young man,” the Doctor began to explain, “small tribes like this one can't afford to lose people to fights, so...”

“So?” Ian asked as the third and final spear arched towards the young man out in the meadow.

“So, can't you see it?” Foreman asked.

“See what,” Ian shrugged; as far as he could see this all looked very dangerous.

“This is a contest of nerve,” Doctor Foreman pointed out, “bravery if you will...I just wish I knew why it was happening.”

“The girl,” Barbara pointed to where Flower stood surrounded by the Wise Women.

“Hmmm? The girl? What girl?” Doctor Foreman looked in the direction Barbara was pointing and screwed up his eyes.

“The teenager with the...” Barbara hesitated for just a moment, “...erm...well...the large breasts.”

“Oh yes I see!” Doctor Foreman laughed, “I can see why they'd be fighting over her...”

“Dirty old man...” Ian grumbled under his breath.

“...hmm yes, of course,” Doctor Foreman placed his hands on the lapels of his jacket and began to lecture, “human males had an evolutionary imperative to appreciate the size of a females breasts.”

“They did did they,” Barbara said quietly, “that explains a lot.”

“Of course, my dear young woman,” Doctor Foreman smiled indulgently at Barbara, “large breasts indicated that a female will be able to feed her offspring. In fact its so deeply ingrained in the male mind that even in, what you might call, 'modern times' men still like to look at a woman's breasts.”

“So...” Barbara began slowly, “...men ogling a woman's chest is all down to evolution?” 

“I'm afraid so,” Doctor Foreman nodded, “Ha!” he pointed to where the youth stood between the three spears that stuck up at angle around him, “If I'm right, and I invariably am, I'd say that the youth has just won the right to mate with the large breasted young woman there!”

“Young woman?” Barbara asked warningly, “despite the size of those...those...things she's barely a teenager.”

“Teenagers are a relatively new concept,” Foreman pointed out, “in her society she's a young woman and she'll be married within the year and give birth to her first child soon afterwards.”

“Yes...” Barbara frowned, “...someone said something about her mating with the youth after she gets her 'woman's name'.”

“How do yo know all this?” The Doctor asked sharply.

“I've been listening and I think I can understand some of what people are saying,” Barbara explained.

“You do, do you?” Foreman frowned a little before being distracted by Ian.

“Look!” Ian cried out as he pointed to where the youth and the older man swapped places, “it looks like its the older fellow's turn to have spears thrown at him...serves him right!”

“You've changed your mind,” Barbara went to stand next to Ian, “a moment ago this was all terribly savage. Now you're cheering the boy on!”

“Well,” Ian struggled to explain, “no one should have to have spears thrown at them so they can marry their sweetheart, there should be a better way.”

“Rock, paper, scissors, perhaps, best of three?” Barbara asked with a slight grin.

“Have to invent paper and scissors and possibly counting first,” Ian chuckled. 

“Counting's a long way off for these people,” Doctor Foreman pointed out, “You only need to be able to count when you have large flocks of animals to keep track of...”

“Look,” Susan cried, “they're going to start again.”

0=0=0=0

“Alright Blue,” Lone Hunter said as he stood near Blue Eyes who was fitting his first spear into his throwing stick, “there's no need to try and kill the old fart, just get your spears close enough to scare him and make him run.”

Holding his two spare spears in his left hand, Blue Eyes nodded as he hefted the spear he was about to throw in his right. Taking a short run up he hurled the first spear, then the second and the third. Blue Eyes might be young but he was an accomplished hunter and he'd manage to get all three spears in the air at the same time.

Obviously Clever Fingers hadn't been expecting the first spear to land so close to his feet. He cried out in alarm and jumped backwards, only to find the second spear heading right towards him! Although he'd done his best to kill Blue Eyes he'd not expected the youth to try and kill him! Turning his body just at the last moment, Clever Fingers avoided being stabbed in the chest by the fast moving spear, however, he didn't move fast enough to dodge the spear completely. The sharp flint spearpoint cut him on the upper arm making him cry out in pain and alarm.

Stumbling backwards, Clever Fingers lost sight of the third spear. Not knowing what else to do he turned tail and ran as fast as he could for the shelter of the nearby trees. At the sight of Clever Fingers' show of fear the tribe jeered and laughed. The Wise Women gathered around Flower to tell her how lucky she was to have such a skilful and brave hunter for a mate. At the same time the hunters gathered around Blue Eyes and slapped him on the back and pointed out that he was a lucky man to get such a beautiful woman into his sleeping skins. Several of the senior hunters asked Blue Eyes to join them when they next went hunting.

0=0=0=0

While all this was going on, Clever Fingers had stopped running and was watching the tribe from the cover of some nearby trees. He snarled angrily to himself, when he went back to the tribe he'd be a laughing stock and no woman would look at him and the children would laugh and point at him; and the worst thing would be he'd not be able to do a thing about it. He'd been a coward in front of almost the entire tribe or at least the part of the tribe that mattered. Now he'd have to rebuild his reputation, but... But there would be some of his fellow tool makers (not that fool One Eye who only did what his mate told him) who'd still follow him. Many of the men who hunted or made tools were uneasy about how the women made all the important decisions for the tribe.

Turning away from where the tribe congratulated Blue Eyes and Flower, Clever Fingers walked deeper, but not too deeply, into the woods. As he walked a vision of One Eye's mate, Chase came to him and he began to wonder. What if One Eye had an accident? Accidents were easy to arrange hadn't his own mate had an 'accident' last winter? If One Eye had an accident, say he fell into the river and couldn't breathe under water, that would mean that Chase would be mate-less. Wouldn't it only be natural if he, as a fellow tool maker, mated with Chase. He'd given away his own daughters, so, getting rid of Chase's brat, Stig, wouldn't be too difficult.

0=0=0=0

“So, what happens know?” Susan wanted to know as she fumbled with the fastenings of her fur bikini top.

“Hmmm? What?” Doctor Foreman 'Hmmm-ed', “What happens next? I expect that young man will mate with that young woman...I wonder if they have a special ceremony...”

“That's beside the point,” Ian pointed out, “I still say that this is all some sort of hoax and that we should go back to this Tardis of yours.”

“Oh what a narrow minded young man you are!” Snapped Doctor Foreman, “What will it take for you to admit that this is all real!?”

Standing a little to one side, Susan struggled with the laces behind her back, they seemed to be tangled into a knot. The only way to get them untangled would be to ask Miss Wright for help, but, she felt uncomfortable about doing that, or, going off somewhere private and take the damn thing off so she could see what she was doing.

Noticing that her grandfather had got into an argument about whether everything was real or not. Susan couldn't understand why Mr Chesterton couldn't admit that they'd travelled back in time and this was the past and these were real stone-age people. Perhaps it was because he was old and found it difficult to accept new things and ideas. But, she was almost certain that Miss Wright believed in the truth of the situation. But this idle speculation wasn't going to stop her bra slipping down and exposing her to all and sundry. Alright this didn't appear to worry the so-called, 'uncivilised' tribe's people, a lot of the women walked about bare breasted and no one seemed to be upset about it.

But, she wasn't a tribe's woman and she _did_ care about who saw her breasts. Seeing that how Miss Wright had joined in the argument about whether the tribe was a hoax or not and how the tribe was breaking up into its component clans, she realised she'd not be missed for a while. Walking away from the council fire she headed for the tree line.

0=0=0=0

“Well, I'm glad that's over,” Elm announced with a relieved sigh.

“Y-yes,” Moon nodded, “but, I'm not sure its completely over y-yet.”

“What do you mean?” Elm wanted to know; she wanted to go home and work on a new spell she'd dreamt about the previous night, but the concern in Moon's voice held her in place.

“Clever Fingers has a lot of the tool makers who'll still follow his leave...”

“Even after he's made such a fool of himself!?” Elm laughed.

“Uh-huh,” Moon nodded, “he'll need watching.”

“Whatever,” Elm sighed as she nodded her own head in agreement with Moon; her friend was good at foretelling the future and if she said they needed to watch Clever fingers, the chances were he needed watching.

“Hey!” Moon looked over Elm's shoulder, “Where's she going? Doesn't she know its dangerous to wander off by yourself?””

Turning Elm saw the stranger-girl heading for the trees.

“Oh she'll be alright,” Elm dismissed the girl from her mind, “With so many hunters around I doubt there's a dangerous animal within a days walk of here...so what do we do about Clever Fingers?”

“Not s-sure,” Moon shrugged, “perhaps he can be accidentally eaten by a lion?”

“Like,” Elm giggled, “the lion says, 'I accidentally ate that scrawny old tool maker, I didn't mean to because he's now sitting heavily on my stomach?”

“Yeah,” Moon laughed out loud at Elm's lion impersonation, “something like that!”

0=0=0=0

Hiding up in a tree, Zaa, couldn't believe his luck. For what felt like an eternity he'd been hiding up on the lower branches watching the New Men and their incomprehensible antics. Whatever had been going on it had ended up with two of the New Men taking it in turns to throw spears at each other. No one had been killed, in fact one man had run away and everyone had seemed very happy that this had happened. Zaa had a vague idea that the New Men were settling some sort of dispute. In his own band disputes were only settled when one band member had killed another. Whatever, Zaa couldn't understand it, however he had got an uneasy feeling that if his own band settled disputes in the same way as the New Men maybe their numbers would grow instead of staying the same.

But, this didn't alter the fact that the young female that didn't belong to the New-Man tribe had walked away from the safety of the group and was standing right under the tree in which he was hiding. All he had to do was to drop out of the tree, capture her, drag her back to the band's cave. Make her show him how to make fire, then force her to mate with him after which he'd kill and eat her, simple!

Just as he was gathering himself to leap onto the girl he froze as she took of the skins that covered her breasts and started to untie the strips of leather that held it together. Hanging onto the tree, Zaa felt his member getting hard and big as his eyes fell on the girl's breasts. The New-Man girl was almost hairless and a lot slimmer and he had to admit more attractive than the females of his own band, thinking that he might force her to mate with him before any thing else, he was jogged out of his day dreams when the girl put her breast covering back on.

Thinking that she might go away, he realised that he'd have to capture her now or spend another day watching the New-Man camp. This would increase his chances of being caught and killed so he acted. Dropping from his perch Zaa landed right on top of Susan. Using his superior strength he clamped his hand over her mouth so she couldn't call out for help. Using his free hand he cuffed her on the side of the head stunning her enough so he could easily lift her lip body over his shoulder. Looking around to make sure he hadn't been seen and that no one had noticed the disturbance of the tree branches as he'd jumped, Zaa made off into the wood as fast as he could.

0=0=0=0

The song from which I got the idea for the 'Spear Challenge', highlight and right click to follow the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKa1fGjc0io


	9. Chapter 9

9.

It wasn't until everyone had returned to the spot where the Valley Clan had made their camp that anyone noticed that Susan was missing.

“Where's Susan?” Barbara asked as she turned looking for the teenager.

“Hmmm?” Hmmm-ed Doctor Foreman as he bent to examine the pots Dusk had been making while everyone had been to the Council meeting.

“You be totally careful with my pots!” Dusk warned as she watched the old man pick up and turn her newly made pots around in his hands, it was like he'd never seen a simple pot before.

“Susan,” Barbara repeated, “where is she?”

“I expect she's seen something,” Doctor Foreman carefully put down the pot he was looking at and smiled at Dusk, “very nice, my dear...”

“What's he saying?” Dusk asked the knot of small children and babies that were playing around her.

“No,” Doctor Foreman sighed heavily as he stood up straight again, “I expect she saw something and went off to investigate.”

“Or she had to use the 'facilities',” Ian suggested.

“Facilities...?” Barbara frowned for a moment before the penny dropped, “Oh, yes I suppose...” you could tell by Barbara's tone of voice that she wasn't convinced, “...but...but it's unlike her to wander off and not tell anyone where she's going.”

“True,” Ian nodded his agreement, “a very responsible young woman is our Susan and anyway she doesn't tend to go far from her grandfather.”

“Right, so where is she?” Barbara once again scanned her surrounding with increasingly worried eyes.

“Should we start looking for her?” Ian wanted to know as he too started to feel concern about Susan's where abouts. 

“Perhaps one of the villagers saw her,” Barbara looked around trying to find someone to ask, “maybe that red haired wise woman knows where she is.”

“And you'll ask her how?” Ian shrugged, “I mean its not as if we can speak their language.”

“I don't know,” Barbara replied as she moved to start her search, “I'll work something out...now stay here in case Susan comes back.”

0=0=0=0

At that moment Shine, Elm, Dark and Moon Wolf were sitting on the ground outside Elm's hut.

“You know,” Shine began slowly, “I may not like Clever Fingers and he's proved himself a coward by running away from the Spear Challenge, but some of what he said made sense...”

“You people are totally weird,” Dark grinned, “you have something called a spear challenge and no one gets killed, back in my tribe...”

“Yeah,” Shine turned to look at her mate, “in your old tribe everyone was killing everyone else, that'd be why you wanted to come with me!”

“No,” Dark grinned and shook her head, “that was because you're so hot!” 

“Okay, before this turns into a mutual-girl-place-rubbing contest,” Elm brought everyone back down to earth, she loved her friends dearly but sometimes... she turned to look at Shine, “What do'ya mean, made sense?”

“Well,” Shine looked and sounded uncomfortable with the ideas that had suddenly popped into her head, “why is it that it's only the women make the important decisions, shouldn't the Hunters and the Tool Makers have a say as well?”

“It's like I said,” Elm explained, “it's the women who have the babies so of course it's them who should decide what the clan should do and where it should go, apart from that its always been that way since time-out-of-mind.”

“Truth,” Dark agreed while Moon-Wolf yawned and wagged his tail from side-to-side.

“Saying its always been that way,” Shine pointed out, “is no reason for things not to change. See, the Hunters and the Tool Makers know things that the Mothers don't. I mean wouldn't it be better if everyone had a say in what the clan does.”

“Maybe,” Elm said slowly, “but if everyone has a voice how will things ever get decided?”

“I'll have to think about that...” Shine replied.

“Not too hard because thinking hard always makes your head hurt,” Dark laughed as she pointed at Shine.

“Why you...!” Shine launched herself at Dark and soon the two young women were rolling about on the ground giggling and trying to take each other's bikinis off.

“Get a hut, will ya!” Elm sighed just as she noticed the older-stranger-female coming towards her with a concerned look on her face, “Hey girls!” she snapped, “Act like grown-ups in front of the visitors, will you!”

“I thought we were being 'grown-ups',” Dark smirked as she adjusted her boob-sling.

“Yeah later,” Shine said when she noticed the look on the stranger-woman's face, “this looks serious...”

“Erm...”began Barbara as she came to a halt in front of the sitting woman, she eyed the huge wolf warily before continuing, “...I don't know if you can understand me but...”

“We can understand,” Elm announced before explaining to her friends, “the spell Moon and me used must be working.”

“AAAGH!” Barbara cried out in alarm and shock at hearing what she thought was colloquial English.

“AAAGH!” cried the three cave women as they all jumped to their feet and started to look for the dangerous wild animal that had obviously frightened the stranger-woman.

When no creature or monster leaped out at them everyone calmed down.

“What's wrong?” Elm asked the stranger woman.

“It's Susan,” for now Barbara would ignore the fact that all of a sudden she seemed to be able to communicate with the locals.

“What's a 'Susan'?” Dark asked Shine quietly.

“I think she means the young-stranger-woman,” Shine explained.

“...she's gone missing,” Barbara continued ignoring the byplay between the two warrior-women.

“Missing?” Elm asked wanting more clarification.

“She just wandered off,” Barbara explained, “it's not like her, have any of you seen her?”

“I saw her heading for the trees just after the Spear Challenge,” Elm replied, “she's not come back?”

“No,” Barbara shook her head.

“Probably eaten by lions,” Dark suggested.

“LIONS!?” Barbara cried out once again causing everyone to look around in panic for the lions that were about to attack them.

“Don't do that!” Shine slapped Barbara's arm.

“Owww!” Barbara snatched back her arm and started to rub the rapidly developing red hand print.

“So,” Elm gave Shine an annoyed glance, “this Susan woman wandered off and hasn't come back?”

“That's right,” Barbara stopped rubbing her arm and gave her full attention to the three cave-women and their oversized wolf.

“I suppose, we better look for her,” Shine pointed out, “after all if we're taking these people into the clan we better look after them...” she looked at Elm, “...you saw this Susan-woman go into the trees?”

“Yep,” Elm nodded.

“Do you remember the spot?” Shine wanted to know.

“Of course I do,” Elm laughed.

“Good,” Shine decided what needed doing, “Elm you go with Dark and see if you can track this Susan person, take Moon-Wolf he might be able to pick up her trail.”

“Wait here, I'll get my weapons,” Dark said before running back to her and Shine's hut.

“While you're doing that I'll have everyone search around the camp,” Shine turned to look at Barbara, “What's you're name?”

“Barbara,” Barbara replied.

“Barbarbarbar-ah?” Shine tried to pronounce the unfamiliar name.

“No Bar-bar-a,” Barbara replied slowly.

“Silly name,” Shine sulked, “why don't you have a proper name like, Shine or Dusk or even Chase?”

“Barbara is a proper name!” Barbara replied indignantly.

“Whatever,” Shine sighed, “I shall call you, Ba-ba.”

“That makes me sound like an elephant,” Barbara complained.

“A what?”

“Elephant...” Barbara realised that the cave woman might not have see an elephant, “...like a mammoth...in my...tribe I suppose you'd call it, Ba-ba is a name for a baby elephant which is like a mammoth.”

“Could have been worse,” Shine led the way towards the centre of the little huddle of huts, “if I'd known that I might have called you, Mammoth-woman,” she sniggered into her hand, “sorry...come on lets go see if we can find your friend...”

0=0=0=0

Right at that moment, Susan was being dragged through the forest, she'd never been so frightened in all her life. Travelling through time and space with her grandfather, she'd seen some strange and yes frightening things in her life. But, her grandfather had long ago realised the dangers of time and space travel and as a result he was always very cautious. This had meant that nothing really bad had happened to them in all the times and places they'd visited.

But now, she was being dragged by the wrist through the woods by some sort of large ape/hairy man who grunted at her and exposed large, yellow teeth at her in obvious warning. The beast-man was naked and when he'd first grabbed her and after the first wave of terror had subsided, Susan had noticed that his 'member' had become hard and erect. To make matters worse she'd lost the bra part of her fur bikini somewhere and the beast-man's eyes kept lingering on her breasts every time he turned to pull her along.

“Grandfather...” Susan wailed only to get cuffed on the side of the head again.

Stunned, Susan fell to the ground only to be kicked and hit before being pulled roughly to her feet again. Sobbing to herself she followed the beast-man further into the trees all the while wondering what the creature wanted her for.

0=0=0=0

“You sure this is the place?” Dark asked as Elm, Moon-wolf and herself got to the edge of the forest.

“Sure I'm sure,” Elm replied indignantly, “they don't call me a Wise Woman for nothing, you know.”

“Yeah, sure, keep ya panties on, Red,” Dark said as she clutched her spear more tightly, “ask Moon-Wolf if he can find a trail, will ya?”

“Hey, sweetie,” Elm said to her mate, “have a sniff around and see if you can smell the young-stranger-woman.”

Moon-wolf muttered something under his breath before putting his nose to the ground and snuffling around in the leaf litter under the tree. After a few moments he looked up and around at Elm and said something in wolf.

“He says, 'follow me',” Elm translated before they all plunged into the shadows under the trees.

Under the trees there wasn't much in the way of ground cover and once they'd got through the brush wood at the edge of the forest they were able to move quickly enough. After only about ten paces, Moon-wolf came to a halt and started to sniff around under a tree. With her sharp 'one-girl' eyes Dark could clearly see the signs of a struggle, spotting something she stepped past Moon-wolf and picked up a discarded boob-sling.

“This looks like the boob-sling the stranger-woman was wearin',” Dark held the piece of clothing out for Moon-wolf to smell.

The Man-wolf sniffed the garment and nodded his great head before going into a long series of whines, growls and whimpers.

“Okay, I got that,” Elm absently stroked the top of her mate's head as she explained what Moon-wolf had just said, “he says that the stranger-woman came this way, stopped under that tree,” she pointed to the tree in question, “a beast-man must have been hiding in the tree and he jumped down, grabbed the woman and dragged her off,” she pointed further into the forest, “that-a-way.”

“And he got all this from snuffling around in the leaves and sniffing a boob-sling?” Dark asked.

“Uh-huh,” Elm nodded, “y'know wolves see more than people can.”

“Yeah right,” Dark looked from Moon-wolf to Elm and back again; her adopted tribe were really weird but she wouldn't trade them for anything, not even a really good spear or one of those small-spear-throwers that One-eye used, “okay, can Wolfie follow the trail from here?”

“ _Moon-wolf_ ” Elm said her mate's name pointedly, “can and he's willing to let you go with him even though you'll slow him down.”

“Whatever,” Dark shrugged, “go back and find Shine an' tell her what's happenin'...if nothin' else we'll need to kill off these beast-men.”

There was no love lost between New-men and Beast-men. Beast-men carried off women and children and stole weapons when they could. In return, New-men would wipe out Beast-man bands wherever they found them. Every year there were less Beast-men, but they were still dangerous to have living near the clan.

“Okay,” Elm agreed, “I take it you an' Moon-Wolf'll be following the trail?”

“Got it in one, Red,” Dark hefted her spear before checking that her knife and sling where hanging from the belt around her waist and that there were sling stones in the pouch that hung from a strap across her shoulder.

“An' stop calling me 'Red'!” Elm snapped, “right, I'll get Shine and come back here and follow you so eave some sign so she doesn't have to slow down and track you.”

“Good idea, _Red_ ,” Dark sniggered before she ran off with the wolf.

“Bloody, primitives,” Elm muttered as she watched her mate and Dark head off into the deep forest, “If she wasn't Shine's mate I'd turn her into a bunny and have Moon-wolf eat her!”

With thoughts of Dark being eaten by her mate going through her head, Elm turned and an off back to the camp.

0=0=0=0

“Okay, listen up people,” Shine stood in the middle of loose collection of Valley Clan huts and called everyone to her, “we're going to look for Susan-woman,” Shine decided there and then that if they took the strangers into the clan they’d all have to be given better names, “plus there's a band of beast-men that need killing...so... Lone-Hunter you stay here with One-Eye and protect the camp.”

Shine would have liked to have taken Lone-Hunter with her, he was the best hunter in the tribe, but, she needed someone strong to protect the other women and the children with both herself and Dark gone.

“Elm you come with me, Ba-ba and the younger-stranger-male...Lone-Hunter can you give him a spear or something?” Shine took a breath, “Dusk you look after all the babies...”

“What am I,” Dusk started to complain, “some sort of pot making, milk animal?”

“Would you rather run with us and have your boobs bounce all over the place?” Shine asked.

“Okay,” Dusk sighed heavily as she saw the truth of her sister's comment.

“Everyone else stay close to the fire and keep your slings handy,” Shine said.

“Erm...” Chase held up her hand asking permission to speak, “...hey, that sorta only leaves me!”

“And Night-watcher and the stranger-shaman,” Shine pointed out as a thought hit her, “Chase you might want to visit some of the other clans and see if any of the families want to join us.”

“You want me to wander around by myself when there's beast-men dragging off young, fertile women?” Chase asked.

“Give me strength,” Shine asked the Great Mother quietly as she looked skyward, as usual the Great Mother didn't do or say anything, “I'm sure you'll be able to look after yourself.” For just a moment Shine kind of wanted Chase to be taken by the Beast-men, but she quickly thrust that thought to the very back of her mind, “Okay everyone who's coming with me, get ready we'll be going as soon as I've picked up my weapons.”

0=0=0=0


	10. Chapter 10

10.

Coming to a clearing at the top of a steep slope, Dark paused in her hunt to look out across the tops of the trees ahead of her. There in front of her lay the escarpment that lay almost perfectly joining the places where the sun rose and set. The picture that she kept in her mind of the landscape around the tribe's camp told her that if there was a Beast-man lair it would be at the foot of that steep escarpment, in fact she had a strong idea about where she'd find their cave.

Looking up into the sky she noted the position of the sun. It was dropping towards the horizon and soon it would go behind the trees before vanishing from the land. It was true that the evenings were long in this land and at this time of year. But, it still didn't alter the fact that she'd soon have to find a tree to sleep in...not that she was frightened of course, she was a Chosen-girl she had little to fear from the denizens of the night. It was just that it was wise to be careful. Looking down to where Moon-wolf stood beside her she spoke.

“Its getting' late,” Dark said quietly before adding, “the trail goes on to those cliffs, right?”

Moon-wolf wagged his tail meaning yes.

“An' it's getting' late?”

Again Moon-wolf wagged his agreement with Dark's assessment.

“Can ya climb a tree?” Dark wanted to know, Moon-wolf made a surprised wolf 'Huh?' sound.

“Thought not,” Dark smiled, “look I've gotta plan...”

Moon-wolf looked up at her quizzically raising an eyebrow.

“I'm gonna follow the trail an' maybe find the Beast-man cave,” she explained, “you go an' find Elm, Shine an' the others an' bring 'em here and then follow my trail, okay?”

Moon-wolf whined uncertainly, he obviously didn't like the idea of leaving Dark to track the beast-man and his captive by herself.

“Hey!” Dark laughed, “Chosen-girl here what's gonna try their luck against me?” 

Moon-wolf replied with a long series of growls, whines and yaps.

“Yeah, okay, there are those things but I can climb a tree, you can't.”

Moon-wolf shrugged conceding the point.

“Okay, lets not waste any more day light,” Dark checked her weapons, “you go get the others while I follow the trail an' we'll meet up in the morning.”

Moon-wolf sighed heavily before wagging his tail in agreement, when Dark looked for the man-wolf again he was gone. Searching for any sign that the wolf might be hiding under the trees and finding none, Dark hefted her spear into a more comfortable position for running, before heading off after the beast-man and the stranger-girl.

0=0=0=0

Curled up into a ball, Susan sobbed quietly to herself; she'd never been so frightened, exhausted, hungry and thirsty in all her lift. To make matters worse she was tormented by the sound of dripping water somewhere in the cave. Unfortunately it was pitch black in the cave and although she'd tried to find the water she'd only succeeded in bumping into the cave walls and hurting herself.

The day had been one of terror for her. After watching the Spear Challenge, she'd headed for the trees and some hoped for privacy so she could properly adjust the bra to her fur bikini. Experience had shown that the locals didn't appear to be bothered about shows of public nudity, but she was, so she'd gone off by herself. After taking off her bra and starting to untangle the laces that held the garment together she'd been attacked by the beast-man.

The creature looked like some sort of large, hairy ape, even as she was struggling with it a part of her mind was trying to classify it, but failed. It was definitely some sort of primitive hominid, but it was unlike any of the species she was familiar with. As she struggled ineffectively against the beast-man's strength, it took every opportunity, of so it seemed, to place its hard calloused hands on her breasts or between her legs; she tried to cry out for help but the beast-man had cuffed her so hard on the side of the head that her cry for help died in her throat.

Dazed and hardly able to stand she found the Beast-man pulling on her arm, when she didn't stand up the beast-man started to pull her along the ground and away from the Cro-Magnon camp. Eventually she managed to to get to her feet and was pulled between the trees and further away from the sanctuary of the camp. The beast-man dragged her through the forest heedless of her cries as branches lashed her exposed skin leaving livid red welts. 

At some point the beast-man must have decided that they were far enough away from the Cro-Magnon camp to take a short rest, but it soon became evident that the beast-man had other reasons to come to a halt. Before Susan could slump to the forest floor to take a short rest, the beast-man hauled her to her feet once more and pressed her roughly up against a tree trunk. Crying out in alarm and disgust, Susan felt the beast-man rub his hot, hard penis against her stomach while he held her arms in the iron-like grip of his hands. Fortunately the beast-man soon ejaculated onto her stomach and chest, obviously satisfied with what he'd done he let her go and almost immediately started to pull her off between the trees again.

The beast-man had kidnapped her at about mid-morning and they ran and stumbled through the forest until it was evening. After going down hill for awhile, Susan found that she and her captor were now at the foot of some high cliffs. Being dragged across the rough ground at the base of the cliff, she stumbled and fell several times skinning her knees and receiving several painful cuts and bruises. However, the beast-man didn't seem to care. He just kept pulling at her arm heedless of whether she stood or fell.

Eventually they came to the beast-man band's cave. Exhausted Susan fell to the ground almost as soon as they stopped, she almost fell asleep then and there but was prevented from doing so as twenty or more beast-men and women came out of their cave to see what was going on. There was a lot of excited howling and animalistic chattering as the man-beasts poked her with hard unforgiving fingers or sniffed at her or pulled at her panties trying to remove them. When her captor noticed what some of the younger males were trying to do he flew into a rage hitting the young males with a branch until they backed off.

Standing astride Susan's recumbent form the beast-man harangued the rest of the band in what passed for beast-man language which not only included vocalisations but a lot of gestures and baring of teeth. Even in her exhausted state, Susan tried to understand what was happening to her. It was then she realised that her captor had ejaculated over her as a method of marking her as belonging to him. After several minutes of yelling and screaming the beast-men settled down to sit around and chew on roots and pieces of raw meat.

The beast-man, who Susan now believed was some sort of chief or leader, pulled her back to her feet again. Pushing her ahead of him he directed her to an opening about two feet high in the cliff wall. With another cuff to the head, the beast-man chief indicated that she should crawl into the hole. When she did the chief rolled a large boulder in front f the hole trapping Susan in the cave. Stumbling through the darkness and after walking into a wall, Susan lay down and fell into an exhausted sleep.

0=0=0=0

Coming to a halt, Barbara threw herself to the ground. The little hunting party had been either running or walking quickly since they'd started to track Susan and her abductor. Although Barbara didn't call herself a 'sporty' type she did pride herself on keeping fit. However, her usual regime of going for runs in the local parks or long walks in the country at the weekends had not prepared her for the way the locals seemed to be able to run all day without rest. Even Ian who played rugby and trained regularly was looking a little worst for wear. In contrast the short blonde warrior woman hardly appeared to be out of breath, even the red-headed wise woman didn't look too tired.

As she sat to catch her breath, Barbara studied the two Cro-Magnon women, there was definitely something of the 'strange' about them. For one thing the blonde was stronger than even a man and the red-head appeared to be able to converse with animals, or at least look as if she could. Several times during the day the party had come to a halt while the wise-woman had gone over to some deer or hare and in one case a rather large beaver. Once she'd somehow stopped the creature from running off she'd appeared to have rather earnest conversations with them. Once she'd finished talking the beast would go off into the woods.

Next the red-head and the blonde would discuss whatever it was the animal had told the red-head and then they would decide whether to act upon the information. Of course by now Barbara could understand what the cave-people were talking about, another odd thing, and as time passed she found she could understand even better than she had back at the camp. Of course this left Ian to continuously ask her what they were talking about.

“What's happening now?” Ian wanted to know as he came to sit next to Barbara.

“Shine and Elm are discussing the merits of lighting a fire,” Barbara replied.

“Who?” Ian looked across at the two cave-women.

“Shine's the blonde, and Elm's the red-head,” Barbara explained, “it seems that in 'The Tribe' women and children have one word names and men have two word names. A person's name has something to do with either how they look or some physical characteristic. Shine is called Shine because her hair is blonde and appears to shine in the sun. I've been named Baba because Barbara sounds like their name for a baby mammoth...I think...”

Ian laughed before he remembered not to.

“..don't laugh,” Barbara gave her colleague a hard look, “your name translates out as something like 'Clumsy-hunter'.”

“I say...” Ian didn't get a chance to say anything more.

“They've decided to camp here,” Barbara told him, “and risk lighting a fire so you better start collecting fire wood...Clumsy-hunter!”

No sooner had Ian collected his first bundle of fire wood than Moon-wolf bounded into the camp site. He ran over to where Elm was sorting out some herbs and mushrooms from her magic bag and knocked her to the ground. The wolf wagged his tail and started to lick her face as Elm laughed and giggled as she tried, not very hard, to fight off the excited wolf. Very soon the licking and greeting turned into something more serious and the miss-matched couple began to copulate right there in front of the fire.

Tutting and rolling her eyes, Shine busied herself checking her weapons while Barbara studiously ignored the couple. Only Ian couldn't seem to take his eyes off the wolf and the woman.

“Don't stare!” Barbara told him warningly, “Go find some more fire wood and don't forget your spear!”

0=0=0=0

“Now that you two have finally finished with the snuggling,” Shine looked pointedly at Elm and Moon-wolf, “maybe we can get on and plan what we're going to do?”

“Moon-wolf says that Dark is following the beast-man to his cave and we should meet up with her early tomorrow,” Elm explained as the hunters sat around eating the small deer Moon-wolf had hunted and killed for them.

“So, what do we do when we get to this cave?” Barbara wanted to know.

“That's easy,” Shine grinned as animal juices ran off her chin and onto her breasts, “Dark and me kill the horrid, smelly beasts and rescue your daughter.”

“Daughter?” Ian asked once Barbara had translated for him.

“Yes,” Barbara sighed, “they seem to have got it into their heads that Susan's my daughter.”

“You told them she isn't, right?” Ian wanted to know.

“Yes, but they don't seem to believe me,” Barbara shrugged.

“So this is what we do,” Shine wiped her mouth on her forearms, “once we join up with Dark and find the beast-man cave. Dark, me and Moon-wolf start killing them. Elm can you do some magic to help?”

“Sure,” Elm nodded as she tossed a bone over her shoulder, “a little mind-meddling spell should do the trick and be easy enough to maintain.”

“Good,” Shine nodded before turning to Barbara, “Baba I want you and Clumsy-hunter to hang back until we've got the beasties on the run then you go in and find...erm...what's her name...”

“Susan,” Barbara supplied helpfully.

“We're going to have to find her a better name than that,” Elm pointed out.

“Whatever,” Shine shrugged, “we'll be moving out early tomorrow, before the sun is up even, so its time to sleep now.”

No sooner had she said the words Shine, Elm and Moon-wolf huddled up together for warmth and went to sleep almost immediately. This left Barbara and Ian looking at each other slightly embarrassed.

“Well,” Ian began, “I suppose unless you want to freeze we'd better...”

“Alright,” Barbara lay done next to Ian and tried to get comfortable on the cold hard ground, “just watch what you do with your hands!”

0=0=0=0


	11. Chapter 11

11.

Waking from a fitful sleep, Susan couldn't remember where she was at first. The full horror of her predicament soon came flooding back to overwhelm her mind for a moment, however, she fought off these feelings of inevitable doom. Surely by now someone would have noticed her absence, she had complete faith in her grandfather, he'd not stop looking for her until he'd found her as would her teachers.

Getting up into a sitting position, Susan groaned as abused muscles let her know exactly how much she hurt after the previous day's exertions. It was only after she'd sat up that she noticed that her prison wasn't a completely black void. A thin, grey light was seeping into the cave to illuminate the small pool of water only a few feet away from her on the other side of the cave. Suddenly remembering how thirsty she was, she crawled over to the pool and cupped the water in her hands.

After drinking her fill and wondering how she could have missed the pool when she'd searched the cave the night before, Susan knelt next to the pool and washed the many cuts and scrapes she'd collected on her enforced journey through the forest on the previous day. It was as she was doing her best to perform basic first aid on herself that she started to worry about her fate.

Various terrible and frightening scenarios went through her mind in a sort of parade of fear, she remembered how her kidnapper had rubbed his penis against until he'd ejaculated over her stomach and chest. Perhaps this was more than 'marking his territory'; perhaps this was a prelude to rape? Or maybe he'd brought her to the cave sacrifice her to the tribe's bestial gods, or maybe she was going to be eaten...and would the ape-men bother to kill her first!? Just then the sound of the bolder that blocked the only exit being rolled aside swept all these fears aside, only to replace them with other more vivid and horrendous ones.

0=0=0=0

Heaving the stone out of the way, Zaa ducked down to see into the cave. He might have been a primitive ape-man, but he wasn't a fool. The thought that his prisoner might be waiting with a rock in her hand ready to smash in his skull came all too easily to his mind. Looking into the twilight world of the cave, he saw the New-man female cowering on the side of the cave furthest from the entrance. Snorting in derision at his own, unfounded fears, he climbed into the cave and after a short struggle with his captive, dragged her out into the early morning light.

The ape-man band that Zaa led were all early risers, they had to be, their instincts told them that winter would soon be upon them and they would need to eat as much food as they could and to see them through the dark-cod of winter they would also need fire. Standing on the 'killing stone' a large altar-like piece of rock that had years ago fallen from the cliff face, Zaa beat his chest and roared out his hunting cry. This had the desired effect of drawing the rest of the band's members to the stone.

Several of the bigger bolder males came right up to the stone and poked at the captive, they only retired when Zaa screamed at them and performed an impressive threat display. Looking at all the faces turned towards him Zaa felt the need to say something, something that would reinforce his position in the band. Although a lot of Beast-man communication was based on gestures and grunts the Beast-men had developed a primitive language to put over thoughts and ideas that weren't as readily communicated with a few grunts or hand gestures.

“Me, leader of Swingers Band, in forest powerful,” Zaa began as he swung his arms to encompass the world around him.

He then explained, as well as his limited vocabulary allowed, how he wanted to be even more powerful than he was now. After a short pause he told the band that the way forward was to 'ape' the New-men, to do what they did and learn how to make the things they used. But first to show his power he would have the New-man female teach him to make new-fire.

Grabbing Susan by the wrist, Zaa dragged her over to the sight of the dead fire, he pointed at the cold ashes and made the gesture associated with fire making. The female however looked up at him with fear in her eyes and did nothing. Feeling the anger and frustration fill his chest, Zaa raised his hand and cuffed the female on the side of her face. The female cried out in pain as she slumped to the ground. Stepping forward he took her hair in his rough, horny hands and pulled her back to the dead fire. Again he pointed to old fire and made the fire making gesture, the female didn't do anything except call out in her own language.

“But I don't know how to make fire...” Susan sobbed from between bloodied lips.

Although Zaa didn't truly understand the words he could tell that the female was claiming she didn't know how to make fire. Letting go of the female for a moment, Zaa searched for and found a good solid stick that had been brought to the 'fire place' to feed the fire. Instead of using it to feed the fire Zaa used it to beat the female.

“YOU LIE! YOU LIE!” Zaa screamed as he beat Susan unmercifully.

He couldn't understand why the female would claim not to be able to make fire. Hadn't he seen the New-man female use her magic to make a fire? Obviously this was the magic that all New-man females possessed, so why wouldn't she share that knowledge with him? Lifting his stick again Zaa beat on Susan some more. He only stopped when she lay still on the ground next to the dead fire.

0=0=0=0

“We've got to help her!” Ian cried before starting to get up from behind the large rock everyone was hiding behind.

“NO!” Shine said firmly as she grabbed hold of Clumsy-hunter's hair and dragged him back into the cover of the rock, “Not 'til, Dark and Moon-wolf get here...now shut up and keep hidden!”

“What did she say?” Ian demanded of Barbara as he sat back down in the cover of the rock.

“She wants you to stay hidden until the wolf and that dark haired girl gets here,” Barbara explained.

“But...” Ian began but was shushed into silence by the three women around him.

0=0=0=0

Shine could understand Clumsy-hunter's feeling, he obviously didn't want the younger female to be killed, he probably wanted to mate with her himself. Peeping around the side of the rock, Shine saw the girl lying on the ground while the beast-man leader screamed and jumped up and down waving his arms around madly. It was obvious to Shine that the beast-man wanted the girl to show him how to make fire. What she couldn't understand was if that's what the beast-man wanted then why not show him, it would at least stop him from beating on her.

Several reasons for the girl not to show the beast-man how to make fire came to Shine's mind. First she didn't know how to make fire; maybe she hadn't been taught yet or it was the job of a particular woman in her tribe to make fire. This wasn't unheard of, hadn't Night-watcher said it was so in his birth tribe? Then maybe fire making was a closely guarded woman's magic in her tribe, but was it something you'd risk death over?

Watching as the beast-man kept on screaming at his band while every now and then hitting the girl with his stick, Shine realised that the girl's actions might not be as foolish as she at first thought they were. If she showed the beast-men how to make fire they might keep her alive so they could learn her magic...or...they could just as easily forget about all that and simply kill her and eat her. They might also force their man-things into her before killing and eating her.

“F'oook!” Shine cursed, before asking the forest, “Where are you Dark?”

“YO!” Dark's voice came to Shine's ears almost immediately.

“Dark!” Shine cried out with joy as she turned to smile and hug her mate.

At the same time that Shine and Dark were getting reacquainted, Moon-wolf appeared from out of the trees and barrelled into Elm knocking her to the ground. The Man-wolf stood over his mate wagging his tail as he licked her face.

“What's going on now?” Ian demanded.

“I think they're all just happy to see each other again,” Barbara replied.

“Well, I wish they'd hurry up,” Ian replied as he held onto his spear and wondered if it came to a fight whether he'd be able to kill one of these beast-men.

The beast-men were not proper people, he told himself, but... There was also the problem about how to use the spear he'd been given. It hadn't been made for throwing, it was much too heavy for that and the cave-people seemed to use lighter spears thrown by using a spear-thrower plus they all appeared to carry slings. Weighing the spear in his hands Ian decided to use it as a he would a rifle and bayonet. He'd done his National Service in an infantry battalion so he'd been taught bayonet fighting. It had always felt rather silly to him that in an age where entire cities could be wiped out with a single nuclear bomb that the army still taught its soldiers to fight with weapons that originated back in the early 1700's. Even as these thoughts were going through his mind the short, blonde warrior woman called for the attention of her tribe-mates.

“Okay, people,” Shine called in a loud whisper, “times a-wastin', people to rescue, beast-men to kill...”

Slowly everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to look at Shine.

“Right...” Shine pulled her fur bikini top back into place from where Dark had pulled it up over her breasts, “...Dark, you go in from the weak hand side, Moon-wolf you do the same from the strong-hand side, I'll attack from here...” she turned to look at Barbara, “Baba, does Clumsy-hunter know what you and him are supposed to do?”

“I'll explain it to him again,” Barbara nodded, “I'll make sure he does his bit.”

“Its not just him, Baba,” Shine pointed out, “we'll all have to fight.”

“Of course,” Barbara agreed.

Okay,” Shine turned back to her friends, “I'll give it a hand-of-two-hands of heartbeats to get into position then we attack on my signal...Elm...?”

“Here,” Elm replied as she was still wiping wolf spit off her face. 

“You got that mind-meddling spell ready?” Shine wanted to know.

“Hold on,” Elm bent and picked up her magic stick from the ground where she had dropped it when Moon-wolf had knocked her to the ground, “right ready!”

“Better get your mojo on,” Shine advised as Dark and Moon-wolf disappeared into the forest.

“Where did they go?” Ian asked; he'd been looking at the dark haired warrior woman when she'd just sort of faded from sight.

“Hunting magic, I expect,” Barbara replied, “now you know what we're supposed to do?”

“Yes,” Ian nodded, “we run in, grab Susan, then carry her away to safety.”

“You know,” Barbara went to stand behind a large tree-trunk, “if this is all a hoax you may end up sticking that spear into a civil servant!”

“Revenge for all that red-tape,” Ian smiled, however the smile left his face as he turned to see Elm muttering words under her breath while doing a little dance and waving a heavily decorated stick about, “What's she doing?”

“Magic, I think,” Barbara replied with a shrug.

0=0=0=0

Things had not gone as well as Zaa had hoped. The stupid New-man female hadn't shown him how to make fire, but on the good side he'd managed to persuade the band not to kill and eat him. However, the band might change its mind at any moment so he better think up something quick. Perhaps he should kill and eat the female and absorb her fire magic that way.

0=0=0=0

“AYE! AYE! HAAA!” yelled Shine as she broke from cover and started to run towards the beast-men.

To her right she saw a flash of grey fur as Moon-wolf closed with the Beast-men. While over on her left she saw Dark dodging between the trees as she called her own hunting cry of, 'T'all'ye'oh!'. Gripping her spear in both hands, she aimed its point on the belly of a beast-man who was only two-hands of paces away from her.

0=0=0=0

All thoughts of eating Susan fled Zaa's mind when he heard the hunting cries of new-men as they came to his ears through the trees. Looking up he saw first one then two new-man females yelling as they ran between the trees towards the camp. Next he saw an enormous wolf bounding towards him. For a fleeting moment, Zaa wondered if the wolf might eat the new-man females, but his hopes were dashed when the wolf leapt on one of his band and ripped her throat out. The next thing he knew was one of the new-man females had thrust her spear into Haa's belly and spilled his guts out on to the forest floor. Over to his right a dark haired new-man female had stabbed another of his males in the stomach with her spear, while slashing a knife across the throat of another female.

It was about at this moment the entire band started to panic, Zaa found he couldn't decide whether to run into the forest, or hide in the cave, or grab a weapon and fight. He was still trying to puzzle out the answer to this insurmountable problem when Shine hit him on the side of his head with the heavy butt of her spear before stabbing him in the belly with the point.

0=0=0=0

Trying to ignore all the blood, screaming and death all around him, Ian ran through the melee towards where Susan lay. Behind him he could hear Barbara keeping pace as no doubt she too was trying not to see the bloody scrum gong on all around them. On reaching the place where Susan lay, Ian found himself faced with a huge ape-man, He could smell the creatures rank fur from two yards away. The Ape-ting screamed and jumped up and down as it bared its teeth at him, much as he'd seen chimpanzees do during a school trip to London Zoo.

Jambing at the ape with his spear, Ian tried to make the creature back off. The man-ape dodged Ian's half-hearted thrusts, but was soon back closer than ever. Realising the ape-thing wasn't going to back off, Ian clutched his spear in the en-garde position and lunged towards the creature's belly. If his bayonet instructors had seen him thrust and stab the ape-man they would have been proud and congratulated themselves on a job well done. The ape cried out as blood flew out of its mouth as it collapsed upon the ground. Withdrawing his spear point, Ian thrust again just to make sure the creature was really dead before turning to help Barbara pull Susan to her feet.

0=0=0=0

What provided a little inspiration here...highlight and right click to follow the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JDzlhW3XTM


	12. Chapter 12

12.

Thrusting upwards with her spear, Shine failed to give the beast-man cub a killing wound. Instead the flint spear head caught the young beast-man on the thigh. Screaming in a mixture of fear, pain and anger the cub climbed higher into the tree where it had taken refuge. Unfortunately for the young beast-man as it climbed higher the tree's branches got thinner and less capable of taking its weight. On grasping a branch the beast-man youth hard a terrible cracking sound as it gave way. The beast-man's fate was sealed as the branch broke from the tree and he fell to the ground. No sooner had the beast-man fallen than Shine was on him her spear raised for the killing thrust. 

“NO!” cried Barbara as she turned to see Shine raise her spear.

“Huh!?” Shine hesitated for a moment.

However, when she saw no reason for Barbara's cry she plunged her spear into the young beast-man's stomach and pushed it up under his ribs and into chest. The beast-man drummed his heels on the leaf covered earth as blood gushed from his mouth; he was dead moments later.

“Why did you do that?” Barbara demanded as she came to a halt only a couple of feet away from the young cave-woman, “It was only a baby...”

“Do what?” Shine was truly puzzled by the older woman's outburst.

“You didn't have to kill it,” Barbara explained still shocked by Shine's actions.

“What do you mean, I didn't have to kill it?” Shine was confused, she didn't understand the other woman's problem; she cleaned blood and gore from the end of her spear with a handful of forest leafs.

“You could have let it go,” Barbara said as she slowly calmed down.

“OH!” Shine cried out as she realised just how cruel the stranger-woman really was, she must be very angry about what the beast-man leader had done to the younger woman, Susan.

Frowning a little Shine shrugged as she got the last of the blood and guts off her spearhead, whatever the two women's relationship was it was no reason to be so nasty.

“So, you'd prefer it if we let the young starve or be eaten by lions?” Shine asked.

“What!?” it was Barbara's turn to frown, “No, I didn't mean that you could have...”

“Could have what?” Shine was beginning to see where Baba was coming from, she had a miss placed sense of kindness; kindness was for tribe-mates not for creatures that might kill you. “You want me to not kill theses creatures so they can grow up and carry away out children and babies and eat them?”

“No,” Barbara hesitated, she was also beginning to see Shine's point, “I meant there must be another way...”

“Tell me and I'll think about it,” Shine replied, “until then go see to your tribe-mate.”

Watching as Barbara went back to where Clumsy-hunter and Elm were tending to the other stranger woman, Shine noticed Moon-wolf return to the scene of the battle.

“Catch them?” Shine asked; Moon-wolf had chased off after the two or three beast-men who'd run away, the great man-wolf nodded his head and wagged his tail.

“Good,” Shine reached out to touch Moon-wolf's head, her hand came back bloody, “Eww, you better clean up before you go see Elm.”

Nodding again before ambling off between he trees, Shine watched him go. As he disappeared between the trees, she couldn't help but think that this could have been a lot easier if they'd had the help of the wolves from their home valley.

0=0=0=0

“How's Susan?” Barbara asked Ian as she rejoined the little group clustered around the injured girl.

“Well,” Ian eyed Elm warily, “Red here dressed the worst of Susan's injuries then she started chanting and shaking that stick about.”

“What are you doing?” Barbara asked Elm.

“Your friend hasn't got any broken bones,” Elm explained in that tone of voice used by experts when talking to uneducated, “and I'll covered her wounds with healing herbs and moss. I'm just worried that she hasn't woken up so I'm using a little magic...”

“Magic!?” Barbara exclaimed.

“Magic?” Ian asked on hearing Barbara's translation, “What good is....”

“Miss Wright!?” Susan blinked open her eyes and began to sit up, “Ooooh that hurts.”

“There,” Elm smiled as she started to return her healing things to her bag, “right as rain...although I can't see how rain is right...except after a long drought maybe...but, anyway she'll be fine.”

“Can she walk?” Shine asked as she and Dark joined the group; all the beast-men were dead, even the ones who'd hidden in the deepest part of their cave.

“Yep,” Elm smiled and nodded, “as long as Clumsy-hunter and Baba help her...where's that mate of mine?”

“Getting himself cleaned up,” Dark told her.

“Cleaned...?” Elm pulled a face, “...oh, I see.”

“Yeah,” Dark sniggered, “blood all over his head!”

“Eww...” Elm swallowed.

“Whatever,” Shine checked on the position of the sun, “unless we want to sleep with the dead we better start out for home.”

0=0=0=0

It took the little party the rest of the available daylight and some of the night to get back to the clan's camp site. Shine hadn't wanted to wait until the next day and so she had pushed on even when Susan had collapsed due to her wounds and exhaustion. Picking up the girl Shine had carried her for some time before handing her over to Dark to carry. On reaching the edge of the camp they were met by Lone-hunter and Dusk, both the big hunter and his mate had serious expressions on their faces, Shine didn't need a camp fire to see how worried her sister and her mate-brother looked.

“Okay,” Shine sighed; what she really wanted to do was go to her hut, curl up with Dark and go to sleep...for about a hand of days, “what's gone wrong?”

“Clever-fingers,” Lone-hunter replied laconically.

“Clever-fingers?” Shine sighed, “Sometimes I wish that Blue-eyes had killed him at the spear challenge.”

“Me too,” Dusk agreed from beside her mate, “just listen to what he did!”

“Who's telling this story?” Lone-hunter asked, his mate was the story teller of the clan.

“You are, dear,” Dusk replied meekly.

“Hold on,” Shine shifted her spear to her strong hand, she had a strange feeling she was going to need it again before the sun set once more, “if there's a story to be told lets do it around a fire.”

Over the next few minutes, Dark took the strangers back to the shelter that had been built for them and reunited them with their shaman who seemed very distressed at what had been done to the younger woman. After that she joined Shine, Elm, Moon-wolf and Lone-hunter at the fire, Dusk was busily rebuilding.

“Okay,” Shine said in a world weary tone of voice, “what happened?”

“Well...” Lone-hunter began but was almost immediately interrupted by his mate.

“Clever-fingers came back to the main camp and tried to drag Flower off into the forest...” Dusk said in one long breath, “...he was going to force her to snuggle with him...”

“BUT!” Lone-hunter silenced his mate with a look, this wasn't one of her stories to keep the clan amused at the end of the day, this was serious, “But, Blue-eyes tracked him and took Flower back before bringing her here.”

“They're in the camp?” Shine asked.

“We built a shelter for them over by the strangers,” Dusk explained, “But there's worse!”

“Worse?” Shine held her head in her hands as she thought how nice snuggling with Dark would be right now, sometimes she felt she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“Uh-huh,” Dusk nodded and gestured for Lone-hunter to continue the story.

“After not being able to snuggle with Flower,” Lone-hunter continued, “he must still have wanted to snuggle with someone...”

“And...” Shine, Dark and Elm all said together.

“He tried to snuggle with Chase...”

“Oh my Great-Mother!” the three women chorused.

“She's alright though?” Dark said hopefully, Chase was supposed to be finding a hunter to put a baby in her.

“Oh yeah, Chase's fine,” Dusk announced to everyone's relief, “she kicked his man-thing and hit him with a piece of a tree until he went away.”

“But it was all I could do to stop One-eye from going off and killing him,” Lone-hunter explained.

“Good,” Shine nodded, “'cause I want to kill him!”

“Don't we all?” Dusk asked; trying to snuggle with a girl or woman who didn't want to was a serious breach of tribal law.

“Yes!” everyone said at once.

“I mean if people go 'round snuggling other people who don't want to,” Elm voiced everyone's concerns, “where will it all end.”

“People killing other people in revenge,” Dark pointed out; her birth tribe hadn't been as 'nice' as her adopted tribe, but even they had strict rules about who snuggled who and who was killed.

“We must think up a word to cover this sort of situation,” Elm pointed out which brought the conversation to a premature halt for a moment.

“Huh?” Shine looked at her friend as if she'd been eating too many mushrooms again.

“There's more,” Lone-hunter said into the silence that followed.

“More?” Shine really felt like crying now, would these troubles never end, things had been easier and better in her mother's time.

“Yeah, like, Clever-fingers went back to his clan,” Dusk was talking again, “an' told everyone that Flower had actually wanted to mate with him all along and how Blue-eyes had stolen her away before forcing her to snuggle with him.”

“You're sure he said that and Blue-eyes didn't force Flower to do anything she didn't want to?” Shine wanted to know.

“Sure I'm sure,” Dusk told her sister, “I spoke to her alone like I was her big-sister and she said that Clever-fingers had tried to force her and she still wanted to mate with Blue-eyes.”

“There's more,” Lone-hunter announced in a voice like doom; this time Shine actually did sob.

All Shine had ever wanted to do was to mate with a strong hunter, someone like Lone-hunter maybe, have lots of babies and maybe be mother of the clan. **But** , first she'd found out she was the 'Chosen Girl' who had to fight all the monsters that roamed the world. Then her mother had been eaten by lions and she'd had to take over running the clan and then there were people dying on the trip to and from the valley every spring and fall and then there were strangers and a stupid tool-maker who wanted to snuggle a girl who was only old enough to be his daughter and...and...just what was a girl to do!?

“I know...” Shine said more or less to herself, “...I'll kill them all!”

“Don't you think that's killing more people that need to be killed?” Elm asked.

“I'm with Shine,” Dark announced, “kill everyone!”

“Well you would,” Elm pointed out, “you're her mate.”

“When you say everyone...?” Dusk asked with a certain amount of fear, she knew what her sister was capable of.

“Don't worry,” Shine forced a smile, “everyone in the clan is safe.”

“There's more...” Lone-hunter said quietly.

At this point Shine was reconsidering whether her clan-mates were in fact safe. Perhaps she should kill every one except Dark and go off and find another tribe.

“...a lot of people believed Clever-fingers, and they're coming to the camp tomorrow morning to take back Flower.”

“And if I say no?” Shine asked coldly.

“Then Clever-fingers will kill you and anyone that tries to stop him,” Dusk said slowly before adding, “I think he's using Flower as an excuse so he can take over the tribe and run it like he wants to.”

“That's very big thinking,” Elm said admiringly, “but do you really think that?”

“I know, fighting over a girl who hasn't even got her woman's name yet is a bit weird but Clever-fingers is just stupid enough to do it...and attacking Chase was a big stupid thing to do. I know One-eye isn't a hunter, but...”

“No he's a tool maker like Clever-fingers,” El pointed out, “which means there's no reason he can't challenge Clever-fingers to a fight.”

“...and he has that neat small-spear-thrower-thing of his,” Dusk pointed out.

“Yeah,” Lone-hunter agreed, “he could kill Clever-fingers before he got into spear throwing range.”

“Okay, so we agree Clever-fingers is a big-stupid...?”

Everyone nodded their agreement.

“...and he's coming here tomorrow morning to take back Flower...?”

Once again everyone nodded.

“...good!” Shine jumped to her feet closely followed by Dark, “Then there's no reason for me not to go to my sleeping skins _and get some rest_!?!?”

“Not now you mention it, no,” Dusk had decided the time had come to agree with her sister, she stood up too, “I'll go find Bright and take her to your hut.”

It was at this moment Shine realised what a terrible mother she was, she'd completely forgotten she'd left her daughter with her sister.

0=0=0=0

“It's all my fault!” Doctor Foreman wailed as he sat next to the form of his sleeping granddaughter, he turned to look at Ian, “If I'd listen to you, young man, none of this would have happened...tomorrow we'll go back to the Tardis.”

“At last!” Ian cheered under his breath.

“So, are you still convinced this is all a big hoax?” Barbara asked as she got their sleeping skins ready.

“No,” Ian shook his head, “I'll admit I was wrong and some how we have in fact travelled back in time.”

“Killing those ape-men things convinced me,” Barbara pointed out.

“And me,” Ian said as he remembered the soft resistance as he rammed his spear into the ape-man's stomach, “sorry, I've got to go off into the bushes...”

“Don't get lost,” Barbara joked as Ian headed off into the night.

After walking the few yards to the edge of the forest, Ian relieved himself. Just as he was about to head back to the shelter the tribes-people had made for them. Something dark and strong came out of the night, grabbed him and dragged him further into the forest.

0=0=0=0


	13. Chapter 13

13.

“Where have you been?” Shine asked from under her sleeping skins as Dark crawled into their hut.

It was fully dark outside now and Dark had been away for some time instead of being under their sleeping skins snuggling with Shine. A little jealous voice at the back of Shine's head was telling her that maybe Dark had found another gather to snuggle with or worse yet, she'd found a hunter!

“I've been havin' that Clumsy-hunter put a baby in me,” Dark announced as she got under the skins next to Shine.

“YOU WHAT!?” Shine sat bolt upright as she looked at Dark.

“Well what?” Dark sat up to confront Shine, “Ya knew I wanted a baby in me so I decided not to wait for Chase to chose a hunter for me.”

“Oh yeah you did,” Shine admitted as she lay down again, “but Clumsy-hunter?”

“I know what ya mean,” Dark replied as she lay down next to her mate and got herself comfortable, “it was a bit of a struggle...”

“It was?”

“Yeah,” Dark nodded in the darkness, “like wrestling with a night-walker.”

“Eww...” Shine wrapped her arms around Dark, “...so, what are we going to call the baby?”

0=0=0=0

“Where did you get to last night?” Barbara asked as she started to tidy the shelter she shared with Ian.

“What do yo mean!?” Ian asked defensively, what had happened the previous night was still fresh in his mind and quite frankly he didn't want to be reminded of it.

“Well,” Barbara smiled, “you went to use the 'facilities' and didn't come back until I was asleep.”

“Erm...” Ian hesitated as he tried to think up a good story to explain his absence, “...I got...you know...”

“No I don't, that's why I'm asking,” Barbara interrupted him.

“Well, if you must now,” Ian blustered, “I got lost...”

“Oh...”

“Come on you two,” Doctor Foreman suddenly appeared at their shelter much to Ian's relief, the Doctor's appearance meant he didn't have to explain about what had really happen the previous night. “Come on, come on you can't stay in bed all day,” the Doctor appeared unaware of Ian's inner turmoil, “there's something going on, something important I'd wager...”

“How's Susan?” Barbara asked pointedly. 

“Hmmm? What?” Doctor Foreman said as he watched the goings on around the camp with eager eyes.

“Susan, your granddaughter?” Barbara asked again as she got up out of the shelter; looking around she did notice that there seemed to be a lot more tribe's people milling around than was usual.

“Susan?” Foreman turned distracted eyes on Barbara and Ian who had now joined the group, “Oh she's surprisingly well all things considered, that Wise Woman must know more abut healing than I suspected. But, I still want her looked at by a modern doctor as soon as possible...”

“So we're still going back to the Tardis today?” Ian asked.

“I think its best,” Doctor Foreman agreed, “unless you want to stay, hmm?”

“No I think we should go,” Ian really wanted to get far away from the dark haired huntress as soon as possible.

“Look,” Barbara took hold of Ian's arm and pulled him away from the Doctor a little, “I'm going to check on Susan, you stay with Foreman and make sure he doesn't wander off.”

“Good idea,” Ian agreed before picking up the spear he'd used the previous day and following the Doctor towards the crowd of tribe's people in the center of the camp.

0=0=0=0

“Who are all these people?” Shine asked after she and Dark had joined Elm and Lone-hunter around the camp fire.

“These are all the people who support you against Clever-fingers,” Lone-hunter explained.

“Chase has been going round asking if they'd rather be led by you or Clever-fingers,” Elm explained some more.

“Well done Chase!” Shine smiled; there really were a lot of people, ten hands worth at least.

Looking around Shine saw Moon, her mate Long-spear and most of the Fast River Clan. The Fast River Clan was a much larger clan than the Valley Clan. In fact it was one of the largest clans in the tribe. Looking around some more, Shine saw people from the Big Cave Clan and the Dark Forest Clan, but she only saw a couple of family groups from the White Mountain Clan which was Clever Finger's clan.

“Do you think this'll come to a fight?” Dark asked a little too eagerly, while the members of The Tribe were reluctant to fight other true-men, Dark didn't appear that bothered who she fought.

“I hope not,” Shine eyed all the hunters each of whom carried their fighting spears or throwing sticks and throwing spears, even One-eye was carrying his small-spear-thrower, she suddenly found herself wishing that they had more of One-eye's clever and dangerous weapons, “But I think we should plan...like my mother used to say, hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

“Ya mother sounds like she was a wise woman,” Dark said.

“She was,” Shine agreed before turning to Lone-hunter, “Lone-hunter, you're respected amongst the hunters...” the tall hunter nodded his agreement, “...go gather all the hunters at the fire...with their weapons...and send Night-watcher to me when you see him.” Shine then turned to Elm, “Get all the gathers and children and send them to the other side of the river, have them hide in the forest.”

“Of course,” Elm nodded before turning away.

“Oh and Elm...” Shine called, “...when you've done that come back to me and bring Moon with you, I want my most powerful Wise Women with me today...”

“Ya are expecting a fight aren't ya?” Dark whispered.

“Sort of,” Shine whispered back as she checked she'd brought her sling, knife and that her pouch was full of sling stones, “could you go get my best spear?”

“Sure,” Dark replied before heading back to their hut.

“Shine?” Night-watcher arrived next to Shine.

“Oh thank the Great Mother you're here,” Shine breathed a sigh of relief, “I'll need your big thinking today...”

“Shine...!” Night-watcher looked passed his step-daughter and pointed, “Clever-fingers...”

0=0=0=0

“Why are you here, Clever-fingers,” Shine demanded as she turned to confront the tool maker, “and why have you brought all these hunters with you?”

“I've come for what is rightfully mine,” Clever-fingers took a step towards Shine as he brandished the spear he held in his hand.

“Which is?” Shine asked, as she did so she had the strange feeing that if she killed Clever-fingers then and there she could probably stop all this nonsense in its tracks.

But, of course she wouldn't, killing another member of your tribe or clan was forbidden, however... No, she told herself she wouldn't strike the first blow.

“I have come for the woman, Flower who rightly belongs to me...” Clever-fingers announced as he turned slightly to address his followers.

Shine now noticed that Clever-fingers' followers included a lot of tool makers as well as hunters while her own followers consisted of hunters and One-eye. Her side was outnumbered by almost two-hands-to-one.

“I have also come for your weapons and to put a man in charge of your clan,” Clever-fingers added to the cheers of his followers.

“First,” Shine spoke calmly while all the time knowing that she only had to give Dark a signal and she'd kill the foolish man in front of her, “Flower is not a woman yet and she doesn't belong to anyone. As for taking our weapons and putting a man in charge of of the clan...” Shine smiled but not in a nice way, “...you can try...”

“If I might make a suggestion,” Night-watcher stepped between the soon to be warring parties, “it seems to me that there is a disagreement as to how the tribe should be lead...”

“Too right there is Night-watcher,” Clever-fingers growled, “my friends and I are fed up of being led around by women like we were children.”

“Right,” Night-watcher nodded his agreement, “but Shine and her friends want to lead the tribe as it always had been led.”

“Well _she_ would wouldn't she?” Clever-fingers pointed out and not without some truth.

“Next you'll be wanting to stop honouring the Great-Mother,” this came from Elm who was standing near Moon and behind Shine.

“Of course,” Clever-fingers shrugged, “you women can continue to honour the Great-mother while the men honour the Great-father.”

“Well that's big of you,” Night-watcher sighed quietly, “but that's beside the point...as I see it all these disagreements can be settled by the tribe splitting into two tribes with each going its own way...”

“Night-watcher!” Shine cried out in shock at the old shaman's idea.

“But that's unheard of!” Clever-fingers called out, it appeared that Shine and Clever-fingers could agree on somethings.

“No its not,” Night-watcher pointed out, “in my birth-tribe the tribe got too big so it split into two tribes...”

0=0=0=0

“What are they saying, hmm?” demanded Doctor Foreman as he turned to look at Barbara.

“Erm...” Barbara frowned as she strained her ears, “...from what I understand...” she explained slowly, “...the man, I think his name is Clever-fingers wants to take over the tribe and run things his way. Now the young woman, Shine, the blonde warrioress, wants things to carry on much as they always have.”

“I see,” The Doctor nodded wisely, “the age old battle between progressivism and conservatism...”

“I don't think that's the full story,” Barbara continued, “anyway the old shaman...Night-watcher...is trying to prevent everything turning into a fight.”

“Ah,” Ian chuckled, “the voice of reason...”

“Sounds like it,” Barbara agreed as she watched the tribe's people sit down around the campfire and start to talk earnestly amongst themselves; as the tension in the air lessened the two groups who had until recently been confronting each other relaxed and began to go about their business.

“Looks like they're going to be there for some time,” Ian observed.

“Sounds like they've a lot to discus,” Barbara agreed.

“Then it's a good time for us to leave while they're otherwise distracted,” Ian pointed out.

“You mean return to the Tardis?” Doctor Foreman asked.

“Yes...you did say,” Ian reminded the old man, “and there's Susan to think about...”

“Don't talk as if I'm not here,” Susan said belligerently, “whatever that red haired wise woman...”

“Elm,” Barbara supplied.

“...whoever, whatever she put on my injuries worked I'm feeling fine,” she turned to look at her grandfather, “if you want to stay I'm happy to stay with you.”

“No,” Doctor Foreman replied after a long pause, “I think this time the young man is correct. It's time to go back to the Tardis before we outstay our welcome.”

“Personally I'd like a bath,” Barbara pointed out, “so I'm all for leaving!”

“Well you know where I stand,” Ian added.

“Yes lets go while they're distracted,” Doctor Foreman agreed.

“No time like the present,” Ian picked up his spear and pointed towards the trees by the river, “that way I think...”

0=0=0=0

The sun had passed its high point when the little group of leaders finished talking.

“So it's agreed,” Shine announced after everyone had said what they'd wanted to say, “the people who want to stay can stay with Clever-fingers and they can keep the old hunting grounds. Those that want to leave can come with my clan and we'll find new hunting grounds.”

“Agreed,” Clever-fingers said as he got to his feet.

“And Flower can go with the tribe she wants to,” Shine reminded him.

“Yes...” Clever-fingers agreed reluctantly.

“FLOWER!” Shine called; the girl ran over to the meeting place and stood in front of Shine, “It's been agreed that you can chose whether to go with Clever-fingers or go with Blue-eyes and the rest of us to our new hunting grounds. You must chose now...”

For a moment Flower looked from Blue-eyes to Clever-fingers, she hesitated for only a moment before going to stand next to Clever-fingers.

“WHAT!?” Blue-eyes cried as he stepped forward to pull Flower back; Lone-hunter stepped forward and held on to the young hunter's arm preventing him from moving.

“I gotta say...HUH!?” Shine asked.

“Well,” Flower shrugged as she began to explain, “if I go with Clever-fingers I'll be the mate of a leader, if I stay with Blue-eyes I'll only be the mate of a hunter.”

“I hope you don't regret your choice,” Shine said.

“I won't,” Flower told her and stood closer to Clever-fingers who now had a stunned look on his face.

“Whatever...” Shine turned and gathered the members of the new tribe around her, “...we'll start out tomorrow morning.”

“Where are we going?” Moon wanted to know, the idea of leaving all that she knew wasn't quite as frightening as she'd thought it might be.

“To the Great Salt Lake,” Shine pointed vaguely in the direction of the sea, “Lone-hunter's been there and says its a good land with plenty to hunt and gather and lots of good caves to live in.”

“Tell us more,” Moon said eagerly.

“We'll have a meeting tonight and I'll tell everyone,” Shine smiled, “until then we better get ready for the journey.

0=0=0=0

It was late, but Shine and her friends were still sitting around the campfire. Having explained where and what she was planning to do some of the tribe's people had left to join Clever-fingers' half of the tribe, but others, who didn't like or trust the tool maker had arrived to join Shine's new tribe.

“Although I don't like Clever-fingers or all the things he said,” Shine explained as she held her daughter in her lap, “some of the things he said made me think...” she looked around at her friend's faces as they were lit up by the fire light, “...and I think that a new tribe needs new ideas to guide it, so... In future, the Hunters, Tool makers and Wise Women will join the Mothers in deciding what is best for the tribe,” Shine paused for a moment before adding, “of course I as Mother of the Tribe will have the final say, but I will listen to everyone before I say what is to be.”

“Very wise of you Shine,” Night-watcher agreed.

“Of course I'll always listen to what you have to say, Night-watcher,” Shine smiled, “but in the end it'll be my responsibility on what the tribe does.”

“That's fine by me,” One-eye said.

“And me,” Lone-hunter agreed, for a long time he'd thought that the others didn't listen enough to the concerns of the hunters.

“I'm cool,” Elm said after glancing at her friend Moon and getting a nod of agreement.

“Whatever,” Dark shrugged, she didn't care much how the tribe was run as long as she got to snuggle with Shine at the end of the day, “but there is one thing...?”

“What?” Shine wanted to know.

“Who are we?” Dark asked the important question, a sense of 'belonging' would be important to the new tribe.

“Oh...!” Shine hadn't really thought about this, it was an important decision, after a couple of moments thought she came up with the answer, “From this day onward we shall be the Tribe of the Great Salt Lake...”

There was silence for a moment before everyone cheered their new name.

0=0=0=0

“Come on, Doctor, lets get going,” Ian say as the intrepid time travellers walked back into the Tardis.

It had taken them all day and some of the evening to find the Tardis again, Ian made a note to himself that in future, he'd leave some sort of sign or trail to help him find his way back.

“Yes, of course...” the Doctor moved unsteadily towards the time machine's control panel, Susan moved to help him and between them they started the procedure to get the machine travelling through time and space again.

“Yes, good, it's matching up,” the Doctor announced as he checked all the dials on the control panel.

“We're beginning to land,” Susan announced after only a few moments, it seemed that time travel took no time at all.

“Oh, how I wish,” the Doctor muttered to himself as he surveyed the controls.

“Have you taken us back to our own time?” Ian wanted to know as he came to stand next to the Doctor.

“You know I can't do that,” the Doctor replied tiredly, “please be reasonable.”

“What!?” Ian demanded, he still carried his spear and was half inclined to use it to threaten the Doctor.

“But, you've got to take us back....you must.!” Barbara cried; she wanted to get out of her hide dress (which was starting to smell) have a bath and something to eat that wasn't half burnt, semi-raw meat and roots.

“You see,” the Doctor began to explain as he gestured to the controls, “this isn't operating properly. Or rather, the code is still a secret. When you put in the right data, precise information to a second at the beginning of a journey, then we can fix a destination, but I had no data at my disposal.”

“Are you saying that you don't know how to work this thing?” Barbara asked incredulously.

“Well of course I can't, I'm not a miracle worker,” the Doctor explained weakly.

“You can't blame Grandfather,” Susan added defensively and still dressed in her fur bikini, “We left the other place too quickly, that's all.”

“THAT'S ALL!?!?” Ian cried angrily, the spear option was looking good just about now, “Just a minute,” he said as a new thought entered his mind, “Did you actually try to take us back to our own time?”

“Well...” the Doctor hesitated before continuing, “...I got you away from that other time, didn't I?”

“That isn't what I asked,” Ian replied menacingly.

“I'm sorry but it's the only way I can answer you, young man,” the Doctor flipped a few switches and pointed to the monitor that showed a new world. “Now we shall see...Hmmm, it could be anywhere,” The Doctor shook his head, “Dear, dear, dear, dear,” he looked away from the picture on the monitor, “that's no help to us at all. Well, I suggest before we go outside and explore, let's clean ourselves up, hmm?”

“Oh, yes please,” Susan cried picking at her fur bikini, “I think I've got bugs living in this thing...” 

“Welcome to Sunnydale,” Ian read as the camera panned passed a sign, he gave a rather relieved sigh, “Thank goodness, some place safe and civilized, even if it is America.”

The End.


End file.
